Changde

Changde City, located in northwest part of Hunan Province, is separated from Yiyang by West Dongting Lake in the east. It neighbors Zhangjiajie in the west and its northand Hubei Hunan Map Province is just adjacent it. Changde City is a transport hub, an energy-production base, and cultural center in the northweate Hunan Province, Its large enterprises include the Changde Tobacco Plant and the Jinjian Rice Processing Plant. Aquatic products from Dongting Lake are also economically important. In the year of 227BC, a city was constructed in the east of present Wuling District. That was the beginning of Changde. In the following two thousand, two hundred or so years, administrative divisions here have changed greatly. The area had been known as Wuling, Langzhou and Dingcheng before becoming Changde.

The Peach Blossom Source is said to be the Chinese Shangri la or the ideal paradise of the ancient people in China. Jiashan Temple at Shimen is a 1,000-year-old Buddhist center and said to be the source of the Japanese tea ceremony. The tomb of Monk Fentianyu next to the temple has been ascertained by scholars of the history of the Ming Dynasty as the tomb of Li Zicheng, leader of a peasant uprising, who lived a secluded life as a monk after his failure to overthrow the dynasty.