Seen from the peak of Mount Yuelu, the Orange Isle appears like a giant naval vessel, anchoring quietly in the Xiangjiang River and flanking the time-honored city of Changsha. The Orange Isle got its name from its specialty, namely, the orange there (also known as tangerine). It is featured by brilliant landscape and long history, for it is the very place where one of the ‘Eight Noted Tourist Attractions in Hunan’ in the Song Dynasty is located. The Orange Isle, as the world's longest inland river isle, connects the Mount Yuelu in the west and the downtown in the east, with a length of 5km and a width of 50-200 meters and a total area of 70 km2.
The Orange Isle is cool in summer, and Mao Zedong in his youth used to walk and swim there. Nowadays, a park has been built on the isle, and a grand white marble monument is erected, where four Chinese characters ‘Ju Zi Zhou Tou’ (the Orange Isle) and a classical Chinese poem, i.e. ‘Qin Yuan Chun--Changsha’ are engraved, which are Mao Zedong's works in 1925. With a scheduled total investment of 2 billion RMB, the Orange Isle is planned to be built into an internationally known scenic area and a multi-functional site integrating gardening, traveling, entertainment, sports, culture and commerce, etc. All in all, it is an attractive sightseeing destination with rich culture deposits.
