Wuhan

Wuhan historically served as a busy city port for commerce and trading with some crucial influences on Chinese history. The name "Wuhan" came from the city's historical origin from the conglomeration of Wuchang, Hankou, and Hanyang, which are collectively known as the "Three Towns of Wuhan". Wuhan lies in the eastern Jianghan Plain, at the confluence of the Yangtze river and its largest tributary, the Han River, and is known as "Nine Provinces' Thoroughfare". Wuhan was the site of the 1911 Wuchang Uprising against the Qing dynasty which ended 2,000 years of dynastic rule. Wuhan was briefly a capital of China twice, in 1927 under a left wing Kuomintang (KMT) government, and in 1937 as a provisional wartime capital during World War II. In 1938, during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the city was the site of the Battle of Wuhan. On December 31, 2019, SARS-CoV-2, a novel coronavirus that later caused the COVID-19 pandemic, was first discovered in Wuhan and the city was the location of the first lockdown of the pandemic in January 2020.

Wuhan is considered the political, economic, financial, commercial, cultural, and educational center of Central China.