Qingshan District 青山区

Setting and landscape

Qingshan adjoins Wuchang District (武昌区) to the west and Hongshan District (洪山区) to the south, while the Yangtze wraps round its east and north, with Tianxing Island (天兴洲) and Jiang'an District (江岸区) across the water. The river flows from southwest to northeast past Qingshan and then turns almost at right angles to the southeast; it widens from 1,060 metres at the gap between Tortoise and Snake hills to 3,800 metres at Qingshan town. Inland the ground is half low hills, rising no higher than 74 metres, and half plain, with Beihu (北湖), Zhuzi (竹子湖) and Qingtan (清潭湖) lakes and about 40 kilometres of shoreline on Yanxi Lake (严西湖).

The name means "green hill": Chinese Wikipedia explains that among the yellow soil, sand and gravel of the riverbanks, boatmen saw only this one small hill on the south bank as green.

History

Qingshan became the gateway to Wuchang once Sun Quan (孙权) built that city. The district government records that Eastern Wu kept a navy at the rocky point of Qingshanji (青山矶) in the Three Kingdoms period. Huangpi county (黄陂县) moved its seat there in 1236 for 40 years to escape war north of the river, and the Yuan general Bayan (伯颜) seized Qingshanji in 1274 before taking Wuchang and Hanyang. The poet Lu You (陆游) wrote it into his travel diary Ru Shu Ji (入蜀记) in 1170. In the late Qing, viceroy Zhang Zhidong (张之洞) used it as a training ground for the Hubei New Army.

On 12 May 1954 the Wuhan Iron and Steel Company was sited at Qingshan, and the district government was formed on 15 February 1955. The first phase of the works took 137,000 mu of land and moved 12,500 villagers. By 1972 steelmaking, metallurgical construction, shipbuilding, petrochemical and power plants had turned Qingshan into a national industrial base.

What to see

The residential west of the district includes Honggangcheng (红钢城), built in 1956, where the plane trees are more than 30 years old. The district also contains Qingshan Park (青山公园), and its north–south roads are named Jianshe ("construction"), recalling the drive of the workers who built the steelworks. Wuhan University of Science and Technology (武汉科技大学) has its campus in the district.

Highlights

• Qingshanji 青山矶: Riverside rock held by Eastern Wu's navy and taken by Bayan in 1274 before Wuchang fell.
• Honggangcheng 红钢城: Residential quarter built in 1956, shaded by plane trees more than 30 years old.
• Yanxi Lake 严西湖: Lake with about 40 kilometres of shoreline in the district.