 Yellow Crane Tower, located on Snake Hill in Wuchang, is one of the Three Famous Towers South of Yangtze River (the other two: Yueyang Tower in Hunan and Tengwang Tower in Jiangxi).
The tower was first built in 223 A.D during the Three Kingdoms period (220-280). After completion, the tower served as a gathering place for celebrities and poets to party and compose poetry. It was estimated that up to the Tongzhi Reign of the Qing dynasty, as many as 300 poems about the tower had been found in historical literature. Cui Hao, a famous poet during the Tang dynasty (618-907), made the tower well known throughout China with his poem 'Yellow Crane Tower'.
Destroyed many times in successive dynasties, the tower was rebuilt time and again until 100 years  ago when it was, for the last time, reduced to ashes. The present tower is a complete reconstruction and is the result of four years of work beginning in 1981. Where the old tower was only 15 meters wide, the ground floor of the new structure was increased to 20 meters wide. The tower, 51.4 meters high, is five-storied with yellow tiles and red pillars, overlapping ridges and interlocking eaves, more magnificent than the old one.
It was said that these characters "Yellow Crane Tower" were wrote by Cui Hao, a famous poet of Tang dynasty (618-907). Yellow Crane Tower reveals the high craftsmanship of the Chinese traditional architecture. |
