The Four Great Towers of China() are four historically renowned towers in China. The list usually includes the following: *

Yellow Crane Tower Yellow Crane Tower () is a traditional Chinese tower located in Wuhan. The current structure was built in 1981, but the tower has existed in various forms from as early as AD 223. The current Yellow Crane Tower is high and covers an area of . ...

(黄鹤楼),

Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei, Hubei Province in the China, People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the List of cities in China ...

Hubei province Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ...

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Pavilion of Prince Teng The Pavilion of Prince Teng () is a building in the North West of the city of Nanchang, in Jiangxi province, China, on the east bank of the Gan River and is one of the Three Great Towers of southern China. The other two are the Yueyang Tower an ...

(滕王阁),

Nanchang Nanchang (, ; ) is the capital of Jiangxi Province, People's Republic of China. Located in the north-central part of the province and in the hinterland of Poyang Lake Plain, it is bounded on the west by the Jiuling Mountains, and on the east ...

Jiangxi Province Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north into hi ...

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Yueyang Tower Yueyang Tower () is an ancient Chinese tower in Yueyang, Hunan Province, on the shore of Lake Dongting. Alongside the Pavilion of Prince Teng and Yellow Crane Tower, it is one of the Three Great Towers of Jiangnan. Yueyang Tower became famous ...

(岳阳楼),

Yueyang Yueyang, formerly known as Yuezhou or Yochow, is a prefecture-level city on the eastern shores of Dongting Lake and Yangtze in the northeastern corner of Hunan Province in the People's Republic of China. Yueyang has an administrative area of a ...

Hunan Province Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi t ...

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Penglai Pagoda Penglai Pavilion or Penglai Pagoda () is a famous tower in Penglai, Shandong. It is noted as one of the Four Great Towers of China, although it is occasionally not listed due to lacking a famous literary piece associated with it. It is known as ...

(蓬莱阁),

Yantai Yantai, Postal Map Romanization, formerly romanization of Chinese, known as Chefoo, is a coastal prefecture-level city on the Shandong Peninsula in northeastern Shandong province of People's Republic of China. Lying on the southern coast of ...

, Shandong Province - ) The first three towers are not disputable. However, Penglai Pagoda is often excluded in favour of Stork Tower (鹳雀楼), situated in

Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...

. This is in order to have a list where all four towers are linked to famous pieces of literature, as follows: * Yellow Crane Tower: ''Yellow Crane Tower'' by

Cui Hao Cui Hao () (died 450 CE), courtesy name Boyuan (伯淵), was a ''shangshu'' of the Xianbei-led Northern Wei dynasty of China. Largely because of Cui's counsel, Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei was able to unify northern China, ending the Sixteen Kin ...

* Pavilion of Prince Teng: '' Tengwang Ge Xu'' (Preface to a Poem on the Pavilion of Prince Teng), by Wang Bo * Yueyang Tower: ''Memorial to Yueyang Tower'', by

Fan Zhongyan Fan Zhongyan (5 September 989 – 19 June 1052) from Wu County of Suzhou (Jiangsu Province, China), courtesy name Xiwen (), ratified as the Duke of Wenzheng () posthumously, and conferred as Duke of Chu () posthumously, was a Chinese poet, po ...

* Stork Tower: ''Ascending Guanque Tower'', by

Wang Zhihuan Wang Zhihuan (; 688–742), alternatively transliterated as Wang Tsu-huan, was a Chinese poet of the Kaiyuan era of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. He is best known for his ''jueju'' "Climbing Stork Tower" (). Poetry No collection of Wang's poems seem ...

Also, Yuewang Tower (Tower of Prince Yue, 越王楼), situated in

Mianyang Mianyang (; formerly known as Mienchow) is the second largest prefecture-level city of Sichuan province in Southwest China. Located in north-central Sichuan covering an area of consisting of Jiangyou, a county-level city, five counties, and thre ...

Sichuan Province Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

, is also considered to be one of the Four Great Towers. Yuewang Tower is linked with more than 100 pieces of literature, and the most famous one is: * Yuewang Tower: ''Ascending Tower'' by

Li Bai Li Bai (, 701–762), also pronounced as Li Bo, courtesy name Taibai (), was a Chinese poet, acclaimed from his own time to the present as a brilliant and romantic figure who took traditional poetic forms to new heights. He and his friend Du F ...

The Three Great Towers of Jiangnan (江南三大樓) excludes both Penglai Pagoda and Stork Tower, which are in northern China, and only includes:"(一) 江南三大樓滕王阁黄鹤楼岳阳楼" * Yellow Crane Tower (Hubei, on the southern bank of the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest list of rivers of Asia, river in Asia, the list of rivers by length, third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in th ...

) * Pavilion of Prince Teng (Jiangxi) * Yueyang Tower (Hunan)

References

Towers in China Traditional Chinese architecture {{PRChina-struct-stub