Regions & prefectures
ChinaRegions & prefectures
Hunan
Sandstone pillars in the mist, a chilli-driven cuisine and Mao’s home province.
- Capital
- Changsha
- Status
- Province
- Region
- Central and South China
- Must-see
- The pillars of Zhangjiajie
- Local specialty
- Changsha stinky tofu, smoked chilli pork
Hunan claims China’s spiciest cooking, drier and more direct than Sichuan’s, which plays instead on the numbing of peppercorn. In the twentieth century the province supplied a disproportionate share of revolutionary cadres, starting with Mao Zedong, born at Shaoshan. In the northwest, Zhangjiajie park raises three thousand quartzite pillars that served as visual reference for the floating mountains of Avatar.
What to see there
Places, dishes and traditions tied to this territory.
In the magazine
Articles that cover this topic.