Located in China’s heartland, Hubei, literally “north of the lake”, is thus named for most of its areas lying in the north of the Dongting Lake. Hubei borders multiple provinces – Anhui to the east, Jiangxi and Hunan to the south, Chongqing to the west, Shanxi to the northwest and Henan to the north. Spanning around 740 km from west to east and 470 km from north to south, Hubei covers 185,900 km² in area, accounting for 1.94% of China’s territorial land.