Current Time in Laohekou, China

Laohekou lies in the north-west of Hubei province in central China, on the left bank of the Han River where it emerges from the mountains onto the fertile plain of Xiangyang. Its name means the mouth of the old river, a reference to a former channel that once joined the main stream here. The countryside around it is gently undulating, planted with wheat, maize, cotton and citrus, and the climate is humid and subtropical, with hot summers and cool, damp winters.

Something around five hundred thousand people live in the city and the surrounding county-level territory that it administers on behalf of the larger prefecture of Xiangyang. Agriculture remains fundamental, and the district is known nationally for its mandarin oranges, wheat and vegetable production, while food processing, textiles, chemicals, building materials, machinery and pharmaceutical plants form the industrial base. The completion of the great reservoir at Danjiangkou upstream, the source of the central route of the project carrying water from the Yangtze basin to Beijing, has made water management and hydroelectric power central concerns for the whole region.

The Han River has shaped the history of the place. As the highest point on the river reliably reachable by larger craft coming up from the Yangtze, Laohekou developed under the Ming and Qing dynasties into a busy transshipment port where goods from Shaanxi, Sichuan and Henan were loaded and unloaded. Merchant guilds from distant provinces built halls and temples here, and the town was prosperous enough to be nicknamed a little Hankou after the great commercial city downstream. During the war against Japan it lay near the front line and served as the site of an important airfield used by Chinese and American squadrons, and it suffered heavily in the fighting of 1945. It was reorganised as a city in the 1980s.

Traces of the merchant past survive in the old riverside quarter, where sections of the city wall, guild buildings, narrow lanes and stone landings can still be found, and restoration work has turned parts of it into a heritage street. The Confucian temple, local Buddhist and Taoist sites, and the city museum preserve regional history, while parks along the embankment give views over the wide, slow water. The surrounding area offers more dramatic scenery, including the reservoir at Danjiangkou with its islands and fishing, the ancient walled city of Xiangyang an hour downstream, and further afield the Taoist temples of Mount Wudang, a World Heritage site and the birthplace of internal martial arts.

Local life follows the rhythms of a Chinese county city, with markets, riverside squares filled with dancing in the evening, and a cuisine based on wheat noodles, freshwater fish and beef. Vocational colleges and secondary schools serve the population, with universities in Xiangyang and Wuhan nearby. Railways, expressways and a regional airport connect Laohekou in all directions.

Laohekou is important as a historic river port of the Han valley and as an agricultural and industrial centre of north-western Hubei.