Hunan Facts
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Natural Resources
Water resources
Hunan has an extensive network of rivers, with a fresh water area covering 13,500 square kilometers. In the north lies Dongting Lake, the second largest freshwater lake in China. It has the largest reserve of natural water resources among the nine provinces of southern China. Xiangjiang, Zijiang, Yuanjiang and Lishui Rivers are the four main tributaries of Yangtze River flowing through Hunan, falling into Dongting Lake at Chenglingji, Yueyang.
Land resources
Cultivated land, forests and grasslands are distributed widely across Hunan. Cultivated land covers 3.788 million ha., accounting for 3.1% of the total of China; natural grasslands are 6.373 million ha., about 1.6% of the national’s total; forests cover 10.3699 million ha., about 6.6% of the country’s total. All these benefit Hunan for its agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fisheries.
Forestry Resources
The provincial authority put a stop to commercial logging in natural forests, and a three-year action plan were rolled out to ban or control logging. An accumulated 15 million cubic meters of logging had been cut.
During the 13th Five-year Plan period (2016-2020), the provincial forestry authorities have completed 13.21 million mu (880,666 ha.) of forest plantation and 13.23 million mu (882,000 ha.) of forest conservation; restored 14.91 million mu (994,000 ha.) of degraded forests; and, cultivated 39.7 million mu (264,666 ha.) of forests. A "one lake and four rivers" ecological protection area, covering the Dongting Lake, and Xiangjiang, Zhijiang, Yuanshui, Lishui rivers, has been formed. In the Dongting Lake wetland, 386,400 mu of populus nigra were felled or removed. Within the watersheds of the four rivers, efforts were made to turn marginal farmland to forests and wetlands, and construct pilots of small and micro wetlands. Ecological restoration in the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan Ecological Green Core Area has been done. Construction of 30 provincial demonstration ecological corridors, including Yangtze riverbank Hunan section, started.
Mineral resources
Hunan is rich in both nonferrous and nonmetallic minerals. As of 2023, geologists have identified 157 types of minerals around the province, with verified reserves for 124. These mineral resources include 7 types of energy minerals, 39 types of metallic minerals, 76 types of nonmetallic minerals, and two types of water and gases.
In November 2024, a superlarge gold deposit with estimated reserves of more than 1,000 tonnes has been found in Hunan Province. Geologists have detected over 40 gold veins, with a reserve of 300 tonnes of gold, within a depth of 2,000 meters beneath the Wangu gold field in Pingjiang County. The site's gold reserve within the depth of 3,000 meters is further estimated at over 1,000 tonnes, valued at 600 billion yuan (about 83 billion U.S. dollars).
New Energy Resources
During the 13th Five-year Plan period (2016-2020), Hunan’s new energy-based installed capacity increased by 10 Gw, about 4 times more than that in the end of 2015. The capacity based on wind, solar, and biomass power exceeded 6 Gw, 3 Gw, and 0.8Gw respectively, up 3.4, 9, and 1.4 times. In 2020, Hunan’s new energy-based generating capacity was nearly 17 TWh. Among this, the capacity based on wind, solar, and biomass power hit 10 TWh, 3 TWh, and 3.9 TWh respectively. Wind power has become Hunan’s third largest power source.
Plants and Animals
Hunan has abundant resources of animals and plants. Five rare surviving "living fossil" in the world are found in Hunan, namely: Cathaya Aargyrophylla, Met sequoia Glyptostrobodies, Glyptostrobus Pensilis, Gingko and Davidia Involucrate.
There are around 5,000 species of seed plants, ranking 7th across the country. There are more than 2,000 species of woody plants, 1,000 species of wild economic plants, and 800 species of medicinal plants. 55 species are identified as rare wild plants under the state protection, making up 17.7% of that throughout the country.
Reputed as a land of rice and fish, Hunan has a wide variety of grain crops, with over 9,000 categories of rice. Oil crops include tea oil camellia, seed of tung tree, rapeseed, sesame, sunflower, cottonseed and castor-oil plant. Economic crops are mainly cotton, ramie, jute (red jute) and tobacco. In addition, there are 100 varieties of medicinal plants like coptisroot and gastrodia elata, and 88 species of eight categories of agricultural and sideline products including citrus, tea, Hunan white lotus, day lily, water-soaked bamboo slice, lily bulb, pearl barley and chili pepper. (Click to know more Hunan Products)
There are woody plants of 103 families, 478 genera and 2, 470 species. Hunan's forest coverage reached 59.57% by the end of 2015, higher than the national and world level. 22 national and 27 provincial natural conservation areas, and 126 forest parks, have been established, and the first national forest park Zhangjiajie Forest Park is among them.
The provincial grassland area covers 6.373 million hectares, among which available grassland reaches 5.666 million hectares. The grazing capacity achieves 7,040 thousand cattle unit. There are grassland plants of 137 families and 868 species, among which 775 species serve as the food of livestock.
Hunan has a great variety of animals. There are 66 kinds of wild mammals, over 500 sorts of birds, 71 kinds of reptiles, 40 types of amphibians, more than 1,000 sorts of insects and over 200 kinds of aquatic animals.
There are 18 categories of animals under the first-class state protection, like south China tiger, clouded leopard, golden cat, whitecrane and white-flag dolphin; 28 sorts of animals included in the second-class such as macaque, stump-tailed macaque, pangolin, hellbender and cowfish, and; 49 types of animals belonging to the third-class including egret, wild duck and bamboo partridge. As the well-known freshwater fish producing area in China, Hunan has over 160 types of natural fish, including carp, blackcarp, grass carp, bighead carp, silver carp, bream fish, crucian carp, gurnet, which mainly belong to the cyprinidae family. Famous species are Chinese sturgeon, Chinese paddlefish, silverfish, hilsa herring and eel. Regarding livestock and poultry, Ningxiang pig, Binhu buffalo, Xiangxi cattle, Xiangdong black goat, Wugang bronze goose, Linwu duck and Liuyang three buff chickens are the most well-known.
According to a county-level biodiversity resources survey, as of March 2024, a total of 1,077 species of vertebrates and 6,296 species of vascular plants have been recorded around Hunan Province, of which 181 species of wild animals and 160 species of wild plants are under national key protection.
Hunan boasts rich bird resources, with 523 species recorded around the province. The East Asian - Australasian Flyway (EAAF) passes through Hunan, making it an important province in central China for migratory birds and their wintering. Four of the nine major flyways around the world pass through China, encompassing three routes within Hunan, along Xuefeng Mountain, Luoxiao Mountain, and Nanling Mountain ranges respectively. According to the 2023 and 2024 surveys of waterbirds wintering across the Dongting Lake, 381,800 birds of 80 species have been recorded, slightly increasing over the previous year.
Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn, Chinanews
Updated in December 2024