China Travel Guide
Attraction · Wuhan Yellow Crane Tower

Yellow Crane Tower

The most-quoted tower in Chinese poetry, overlooking the Yangtze.

Visitor info

Opening hours
08:30-17:00
Ticket
70 CNY
Suggested visit
1-2 hours

Price is indicative — final quote on inquiry.

Why it's worth it

The tower a Tang poet made immortal — Cui Hao's verse about a departed crane and a misty river, which Li Bai reportedly refused to compete with. The current five-floor rebuild (1985) stands 51 metres up Snake Hill, overlooking the Yangtze and the 1957 bridge that was China's first across it.

Don't miss

  • The fifth-floor view: river, bridge, and the two cities of Wuhan meeting across the water
  • The poem inscriptions — Cui Hao's and Li Bai's mock-resignation reply
  • The evening light-up, when the tower's eaves glow over the hillside

Getting there

Metro Line 5 to Simenkou (Yellow Crane Tower) station; the west gate entrance is a short walk uphill.

Tips

  • The tower has an elevator (small extra fee) — the stairs are a sauna in summer
  • Wuhan Yangtze Bridge walk afterwards: pedestrian deck, river wind, freight trains below your feet
  • The 'crane returns' animatronic show inside is charmingly retro; kids rate it highly

Photos

Yellow Crane Tower — photo 2Yellow Crane Tower — photo 3Yellow Crane Tower — photo 4

More in Wuhan

  • Hubu Alley

    Breakfast alley: hot dry noodles, doupi and fried doughsticks.

  • East Lake

    Six times the size of West Lake; greenways, cherry trees and lakeside cycling.

  • Hubei Provincial Museum

    Home of the 2,400-year-old bells of Marquis Yi of Zeng.

  • Yellow Crane Tower Park

    "The First Tower of the Rivers and Mountains under Heaven" (a military watchtower built by Sun Quan in 223, the second year of Huangwu of Eastern Wu in the Three Kingdoms period; repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt—burned down in 1884, rebuilt on Snake Hill in 1985), main tower 51.4m with five tiers of flying eaves (golden gourd finial), Cui Hao's verse "The man of old has ridden away on a yellow crane"…

  • Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge

    Completed in 1957 as the "First Bridge over the Ten-Thousand-Li Yangtze" (Soviet-assisted design, road-rail dual use); "A flying bridge spans north and south, turning the natural moat into a thoroughfare" (Mao Zedong's ci poem)

  • Qingchuan Pavilion

    "Scenic wonder of the Three Chu regions" (facing Yellow Crane Tower across the river, from Cui Hao's line "The sunlit river shows Hanyang's trees in clear view"); Yu-Ji Palace (commemorating Yu the Great's flood control) + Tiemen Pass (Three Kingdoms relic)