Wuhan, Hubei, China
黄鹤楼 · Huánghè Lóu
A tower of poems, burned and rebuilt for 1,800 years. The present one dates from 1985.
Photo: xiquinhosilva, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
The Yellow Crane Tower in front of you was finished in 1985.
According to a Tang (618–907) dynasty geography, Sun Quan built a walled town here in the Three Kingdoms period (220–280) and put a tower on its corner by the river. For more than a thousand years it was destroyed and rebuilt, rebuilt and destroyed. The last of the old towers burned in 1884. In 1957 the approach to the Yangtze River Bridge was laid across the site.
So today's tower stands about a kilometre back from where it began. The one Cui Hao and Li Bai climbed was down by the water.
The tower stands inside a ticketed park on Snake Hill. The day ticket covers the park and the climb to the top of the tower. The evening light show is sold separately, and a day ticket does not admit you to it.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| The tower, climbed to the top floor | Day ticket |
| “Return of the Yellow Cranes”, the bronze in front of the tower | Day ticket |
| The white pagoda on Snake Hill (Shengxiang Pagoda) | Day ticket |
| The statue of Yue Fei | Day ticket |
| The evening light show, 19:30–22:00 | Separate ticket |
The earliest record says that in AD 223 Sun Quan walled the town of Xiakou and raised a tower on the rock at its riverside corner. It began as a lookout.
By the Tang it had become the place where writers feasted and saw friends off. Cui Hao wrote “Yellow Crane Tower” here, which the Song critic Yan Yu ranked first among all Tang seven-character regulated poems.
When you reach the top, look toward the Yangtze River Bridge. The Wuchang end of it is where the old tower stood.
A caution first. The poets did not stand where you are. The old tower stood on the riverbank, at today's bridgehead about a kilometre away. Climb to the top, find the Yangtze River Bridge, and look at its near end: that is where they stood.
Fact: the Tang geography Yuanhe junxian tuzhi records that in the second year of Huangwu (223) Sun Quan built the walls of Xiakou, and that a tower called Yellow Crane stood on the rock at the corner. It was a military lookout, not a place to admire the view.
Note what the book dates: the building of the town. The tower's year is inferred from it. That is why official descriptions say it is “traditionally” dated to 223. The caution is right.
Accounts differ on the name. One view: Snake Hill was once called Yellow Swan Hill, and “swan” and “crane” were interchangeable in old usage. The other: it was named for an immortal who rode a crane, which is the next stop.
Who rode the crane? The story has been told for well over a thousand years, and in the books the rider changes four times.
Fact: Yan Yu wrote in the Southern Song (1127–1279) that among Tang seven-character regulated poems, Cui Hao's “Yellow Crane Tower” should stand first.
Accounts differ. The first line every Chinese schoolchild learns has the man of old riding away on a yellow crane. But two anthologies compiled in the Tang itself, in 744 and 753, and a Dunhuang manuscript, all have him riding away on a white cloud.
The crane version took over in the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1912), and the Three Hundred Tang Poems chose it. Most scholars now think the original was “white cloud”; some still argue for the crane. One line of verse, argued over for three hundred years.
Accounts differ: there is a fiercer line too, about smashing the tower with one fist and kicking over Parrot Island. The Ming scholar Yang Shen held that a Chan monk composed it as a verse on the brush story, and that it is not Li Bai's.
Fact: brush or no brush, scholars count 11 poems by Li Bai that mention the tower, more than anyone else. The best known sees Meng Haoran off to Yangzhou. Another has a jade flute played in the tower and plum blossom falling over the “river city” in the fifth month, which scholars connect with Wuhan's nickname, River City.
Two famous towers rebuilt a year apart: Yueyang Tower in 1867, Yellow Crane Tower in 1868. With the Pavilion of Prince Teng they are the three great towers south of the Yangtze, and all three were destroyed and rebuilt many times. The Pavilion of Prince Teng was last destroyed in 1926.
One painter for all three: the Yuan artist Xia Yong painted each of them in ruled-line style. Two of those leaves are in the Freer Gallery in Washington.
An old photograph became a new building: John Thomson photographed the last timber tower in 1871, and the 1985 tower was modelled on that one.
The tower made way for a bridge. Generation after generation of towers stood on the same rock for over a thousand years. In 1957 the rock went to the Yangtze River Bridge, and the tower moved up Snake Hill.
The same bird in two civilisations. In China the crane carries immortals. In Greece, in the story of the cranes of Ibycus, it bears witness. Schiller made that story a ballad in 1797.
The old tower was not always there. The table below lists only the dates that have been checked.
| 223 | Sun Quan walls Xiakou; a tower stands on the corner |
|---|---|
| 6th c. | Zhang Zhengjian's poem, thought to be the first about the tower |
| 514 | The tower is still standing |
| Tang | A place for feasts and farewells |
| to early S. Song | Intact; Li Gang and Yue Fei both climb it |
| 1170 | Lu You passes Wuchang and notes the tower is gone and even its site lost |
| 1868 | The last timber tower is completed |
| 1871 | John Thomson photographs it |
| 1884 | It burns down |
| 1899 | Huang Zunxian laments in a poem that the tower is “smashed again” and there is no wall left to write on |
| after 1907 | A new building near the old site, later renamed Aolüe Tower |
| 1957 | The Yangtze River Bridge approach takes over the site |
| 1985 | The present tower opens on Snake Hill, about 1 km away, modelled on the 1868 tower, in reinforced concrete |
These are stories people tell about this place. They are legends, not history, and each one says where it comes from.
Li Bai is said to have climbed the tower meaning to write a poem, seen Cui Hao's on the wall, said “there is a view before my eyes I cannot put into words, for Cui Hao's poem is written overhead”, and put down his brush.
The remark first appears in a Northern Song (960–1127) work by Li Tian, more than two hundred years after Li Bai. It cannot be shown to be his.
Source: Li Tian, Gaiwen lu, Northern Song
An immortal rides off from the tower on a yellow crane. The story has been told for well over a thousand years, but the rider keeps changing. In order of first appearance:
The History of the Southern Qi (6th century): “it is said that the immortal Zi'an passed here riding a yellow swan.” A swan, not yet a crane.
Ren Fang's Shuyi ji (6th century): the scholar Xun Gui meets an immortal who arrives on a crane, drinks with him, and flies away. This is the earliest complete story.
Tang and Song records: Fei Yi, a minister of Shu Han, became an immortal and often rested here on his yellow crane. Fei Yi was a real man. His ascension is legend.
Popular tales from the Yuan (1271–1368) and Ming (1368–1644): Lü Dongbin paints a crane on the wall of the Xin family's tavern.
The version visitors know best today, Lü Dongbin's, is the latest of all, more than a thousand years younger than the first.
Source: History of the Southern Qi; Ren Fang, Shuyi ji; Tang and Song records
A Greek legend. The poet Ibycus, murdered on the road, saw cranes pass overhead as he died. Later the flock appeared above a theatre, and the killers gave themselves away.
Source: Ancient Greek tradition
Later, people who live here will be able to add the stories they grew up with, and say which of these they have heard.
Last checked 2026-11-11. Travel and news reports, not the site's own notices.
Stand at the site, sign in, press the button, and collect its stamp. Your browser will ask to use your location. It is sent to us once to confirm that you are at the site; we keep how far you were from it, not the spot where you stood.
Your stamps are saved to your account, so they follow you to any device. Checking from a browser cannot rule out every false location; stricter checks arrive with the app.
Photos here show the place, not people. Each one is credited to the visitor who took it and appears after our team has looked at it. A photo with you in it belongs under “I am here”.