Why Changsha, China is the country’s most up-and-coming city

It’s late afternoon on Changsha’s Orange Island, and high school student Zhang Meixi is photographing the 32-metre-high granite statue of a young Mao Zedong that presides here. The statue gazes south down the Xiang River, which bisects Changsha, the capital of Hunan province. Seated a few metres away, oblivious to the scenery, Meixi’s grandfather taps a fusillade on his iPad, occasionally addressing it in a gruff monotone. 

“I wanted to ask him something about the old days, when he was growing up here in the 1960s, but there’s no chance once he starts playing with his tablet,” shrugs Meixi, who likes to go by the name of Qitty. 

Zhang Senior may be silent on the subject of Changsha’s illustrious former resident, but it’s one of the tenets of the city’s folklore: that roughly a century ago, Mao Zedong used to chew the political fat with his coevals while working at the Fourth Normal School. Today, however, Changsha, which traces its history back 3,000 years to the Qin dynasty, is looking excitedly to the future. 

Changsha’s modern makeover  

An unmissable highlight of the new Changsha is the US$275 million (HK$2.1 billion), russet-coloured Lucky Knot bridge , which opened in September 2016. Rather than a straightforward 185-metre span, it twists and turns its way across the Dragon King Harbour River in Meixi district, granting pedestrians the choice of three different routes and a dash of spectacle along the way. 

“Changsha is growing and changing rapidly, and when we embarked on the initial design, we wanted a unique gesture to inspire passersby,” says Michel Schreinemachers, partner at Amsterdam-based NEXT architects. His colleague, Jiang Xiaofei, adds: “The Lucky Knot bridge is more than a connection between two riverbanks – it brings cultures together, a fusion of history, technology, art, innovation, architecture and drama.” 

What Zhang Yue, one of Changsha’s most prominent and prosperous tycoons, makes of the Lucky Knot bridge is open to conjecture. The self-made billionaire and chairman of eco-friendly manufacturer Broad Group is known for his so-far unsuccessful attempts to pierce Changsha’s skyline with the world’s tallest building. Plans for the 838-metre, 202-storey, US$1.5 billion (HK$11 billion) Sky City were met with pursed lips and furrowed brows on the part of officialdom, who raised environmental, engineering and numerous other objections. 

While Zhang is said to be undeterred,the last report revealed that villagers had cunningly repurposed Sky City’s yawning foundations as fishponds. Zhang can at least take some comfort from the completion of his other major Changsha construction project: the 208-metre, 57-storey Mini Sky City, whose final 37 storeys were snapped together like so much Brobdingnagian Lego in a record 19 days in 2015. 

“Sky City was a wild, eccentric quirk, so fantastic you couldn’t really believe it was happening,” muses Emile Chan, a Chinese Canadian IT expert who commutes between Changsha and Quebec several times a year. “But it showed one thing – Changsha is going places. There’s a real buzz here, a sense of progress and forging ahead.” People have started to recognise Changsha’s potential – the city is clearly carving out its own path.  

Cultural developments on Meixi Lake 

Adding substance to Chan’s pronouncements, a cultural landmark – Changsha Meixihu International Culture & Arts Centre – arrestingly designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, lies in the west of Changsha, with its shimmering, swooping roofs rising like waves from nearby Meixi Lake. Rather than another office block, shopping mall, deluxe apartment complex or extension to the city’s swish bilingual metro line, this is a cerebral development as well as a mini architectural masterpiece. 

Opened in 2019, it’s the firm’s second trophy project in the Chinese Mainland, following the innovative “double pebble” design for the Guangzhou Opera House, which opened in 2010. The complex – whose initial concept was sketched out by Anglo-Iraqi Dame Zaha prior to her death in March 2016 – is centred around an 1,800-seat grand theatre, which plays counterpoint to a contemporary art museum. A multi-purpose hall with a capacity of 500 and attendant restaurants and shops complete the CN¥2.4 billion (HK$2.6 billion) package – a structure unequalled in Changsha in all the millennia of its existence. 

“This is a fabulous endeavour, an amazing technical achievement and a real milestone for Changsha,” says Simon Yu Kam-man, Zaha Hadid’s project director. “We broke ground in 2012, and it’s been really incredible to see the area around the site grow as we’ve been building new offices to homes, and now this cultural centre, it’s like watching a whole new metropolis grow up, an Atlantis in reverse.”

The cultural centre is bracketed by the four-star Meixi Lake Hotel , part of Marriott’s Luxury Collection, and a shopping complex heroically named Mall of Splendours. While its anchor tenant may be Walmart, the supporting boutiques, both international and Chinese, offer a decidedly upmarket clout. 

The rest of Changsha resounds to the tumult of recent development – the Maglev Express hurtles between the Changsha Huanghua International Airport and South Railway Station, while the European-styled Fisherman’s Wharf is a popular tourist attraction that draws as many rubber-neckers as shoppers. Yet Orange Island , which is dotted with parks, sculpture gardens and the occasional architectural oddity from days gone-by, remains a haven of tranquillity. 

“By the time I bring my grandchildren here, I guess Changsha will have changed even more,” Qitty Zhang concludes. “But I’m not married yet.” And she laughs at her own joke, with just a smidgen of apprehension. 

This story was accurate at the time of publishing in February 2017. It was updated in November 2025.