Let go of the "old grudges"; this time, the two major provincial sub-centers are not competing.

Ask AI · Why do Yichang and Nanyang choose to team up and grow the culture and tourism cake?

Every reporter from The Economic Daily: Dan Zhongkui    Editor of The Economic Daily: Yang Huan

Image source: Shetu.com_501767402_

Yichang and Nanyang—this time, they’re not competing.

As provincial-level sub-central cities in Hubei and Henan, respectively, the two cities both sit in the Nanchang-Xiangyang Basin, with mountains and waters intertwined and shared cultural connections, yet they have for over a thousand years been a “love-and-attack” across eras—arguing over Zhuge Liang’s “farmstead,” competing over the Ningxi Railway and the Hekang High-speed Railway passing through, with even some overlap and contest in economic scale. In the culture-and-tourism consumption market, they’ve also been openly going head-to-head.

But right now, both cities are entering a “breakthrough.” On March 23, at the “Zhiyin Hubei · All the Way Amidst a Blossoming” — the 2026 Hubei culture and tourism flower-viewing season promotional event for Nanyang, 18 culture-and-tourism companies from Nanyang and eight cities in Hubei took the stage and signed agreements. This will drive complementary culture-and-tourism resources, shared visitor flows, and market connectivity. Meanwhile, four linked tourism routes connecting Nanyang and Xiangyang were also launched simultaneously.

Before this, Xiangyang culture and tourism and Nanyang culture and tourism also released a co-creation video inviting netizens to “come to Xiangyang and Nanyang for a trip—there’s a whole ‘two-city story’ you can’t finish.” The linkage between the two official account platforms has also been called by netizens a “once-in-a-century big reconciliation.”

From the start of the year, when officials moved in to “seal and certify” the relationship between the two cities—such as the Xiangyang Municipal Government work report “naming” and stating that ties with Nanyang and surrounding cities would be “even closer” and that cooperation would “keep heating up,” and up to now with frequent interactions in the culture-and-tourism market—what does such a shift mean?

Turning Point

The opening of the “Memorial on the Expedition” says, “I am originally a commoner, laboring in my field in Nanyang.” In this land of farming, the “struggle and rivalry” between Nanyang and Xiangyang has lasted for a thousand years—Nanyang has Wolonggang, while Xiangyang has Gulongzhong.

This also sets the groundwork for open and covert competition in various fields between the two cities. Around the direction of the Ningxi Railway and the Hekang High-speed Railway, Nanyang, Xiangyang, and Suizhou have clashed multiple times, and to a large extent Nanyang has been viewed as the winner of the two rounds of competition over the two routes. However, in the culture-and-tourism market, Nanyang has been deeply stimulated by Xiangyang—

In early 2023, a letter released by Xiangyang Overseas Chinese City Fantasy Resort mentioned “more than 30k friends from Henan’s Nanyang, traveling 138 kilometers to go to Xiangyang in Hubei.” This made Nanyang, which had just started calling for “making every effort to grow culture-and-tourism consumption,” unable to stay calm, and led to a public reflection on its own culture-and-tourism and cultural-creative industries.

Now, three years later, the “handshake” between the two cities’ culture-and-tourism departments looks extraordinary. Hubei specifically mentioned that the aforementioned promotional event received strong support from the Henan Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism and the Nanyang Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism. The two places simultaneously launched four linked tourism routes connecting Nanyang and Xiangyang:

Nanyang Rose Month Season Grand View Garden—Xiangyang Zaoyang Ten-Thousand-Mu Peach Blossom Field;
Nanyang Prefecture Yamen—Xiangyang Tang City, North Street;
Nanyang Wolonggang—Xiangyang Gulongzhong;
Xiangyang Overseas Chinese City—Nanyang Xixia Dinosaur Relics Park.

Especially the linkage between Wolonggang and Gulongzhong demonstrates the determination of Nanyang and Xiangyang to cooperate in culture and tourism. When complementary culture-and-tourism resources and mutual visitor-sending become the norm, regional barriers can be further broken down, and only then does a so-called “two-city story” become possible.

Image source: Shetu.com 501751140

“Competing for a cake isn’t as good as working together to make the cake bigger.” Qin Zunwen, vice chairman of the China Society of Urban Economics and secretary-general of the Yangtze River High-End Think Tank Alliance, said in an interview with Urban Evolution Theory that to a certain extent, culture and tourism is the attention economy, and group development is also the trend. Nanyang and Xiangyang historically have very close ties; it’s a good thing to set aside disputes and team up to make growth happen together.

In fact, the culture-and-tourism industry itself is one of the important pillars of economic development in both places. Xiangyang’s tourist arrival volume has surpassed 100 million people for three consecutive years, and total tourism revenue has exceeded 90 billion yuan. In Nanyang, in the first 11 months of last year, total tourist visits had also already exceeded 96.899 million, with comprehensive tourism revenue reaching 80.2 billion yuan, with a growth momentum that is extremely rapid.

In the 2026 Government Work Report, Nanyang proposed to continue doing well on the “four essays” of culture, landscapes and mountains, health and wellness, and roses, and to solidly carry out “exchange activities among cities along the South-to-North Water Diversion project,” among other efforts, striving to increase tourist arrival volume and comprehensive tourism revenue by 5% and 10% or more respectively. Xiangyang, meanwhile, needs to enhance the appeal of core scenic areas such as “ancient city—Gulongzhong—Tang City—Overseas Chinese City,” and continue expanding the “ticket-stub economy,” striving to push tourist arrival volume beyond 110 million and total tourism revenue to reach 100 billion yuan.

This also shows the drive of both cities to strive forward in the culture-and-tourism industry.

Linked-Up

Not only culture and tourism—there’s even more room for cooperation between the two places.

Not long ago, when mentioning “advancing the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt,” the national “15th Five-Year Plan to 5-year from the next” outline emphasized that it is necessary to promote green transformation and upgrading of industries along the river and foster coordinated and linked development among the upper, middle, and lower reaches. How to fully unleash the development potential of cross-regional link-based areas has become a focus of attention for all parties.

“From the national two sessions to the ‘15th Five-Year Plan’ outline, linkage development has been highly emphasized. Xiangyang and Nanyang happen to be cross-regional link-based cities, and they are both provincial-level sub-central cities, with very high development positioning in the province.” Qin Zunwen believes that if they want to develop in a coordinated way and strengthen the tourism industry, it’s a very good breakthrough point, and cooperation in the auto industry also has great potential.

Image source: Shetu.com 501751133

Xiangyang rises because of cars. The auto industry is the city’s largest industry, and it was successfully approved as a national-level vehicle-networking pilot zone. The upgrade toward new-energy and intelligent connected vehicles has been accelerating continuously, forming a clustered development trend for vehicle complete units driving parts into scale. Among them, the final assembly workshop for the Dongfeng Yipai Nano 01 rolls out a new car every 2 minutes, sold to more than 20 countries and regions including Germany, Nepal, Chile, and Malaysia.

Nanyang, on the other hand, is strong in auto parts. In December 2024, Nanyang’s Development and Reform Commission publicly stated that there are 130 automotive industrial enterprises in the entire city, and key enterprises include Feilong Company, Jianshan Company, Zhende Company, and others. Products such as automotive water pumps, shock absorbers, turbocharger housing components, and intake and exhaust manifolds have a relatively high market share within the domestic market. They mainly supply more than 40 complete-vehicle enterprises such as SAIC-GM, FAW Volkswagen, Second Automobile, and Dongfeng Motor, and also export to more than 10 countries and regions including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Brazil.

However, it also acknowledged that compared with Wuhan, Xiangyang, Shiyan, and Suizhou’s auto industry, there are still urgent issues to be resolved, such as the auto industry needing transformation and upgrading, industrial clustering not being high, and the lack of strong independent innovation capabilities.

“Nanyang is located between the automotive industry corridor of Wu-Xiang-Shi-Sui and the Zheng-Kai automotive industry belt. Strengthening coordinated development among regions—especially reinforcing coordinated development between Nanyang and Xiangyang—will be of great significance for further opening potential markets for our city’s auto and auto-parts industries and enhancing competitiveness.”

This is also an important opportunity for the two places to achieve coordinated development in both complete-vehicle and parts production across the auto industry. In Qin Zunwen’s view, both Xiangyang and Nanyang are major agricultural cities; Nanyang’s advantages in agricultural and sideline products processing and in traditional Chinese medicine and related industries are incomparable to Xiangyang. Just as Muyuan Foods has become a globally leading pig-breeding company, it has driven the rapid development of an agricultural-products deep-processing industrial cluster. In these areas, the two places can further strengthen cooperation.

Center

Urban development should be coordinated, but competition can’t be avoided either. Looking back over the past decade or more, Xiangyang and Nanyang have already swapped roles in terms of offense and defense. The former, driven by the strong rise of its auto industry, has achieved a historic catch-up and overtaking.

In 2012, Xiangyang’s GDP first surpassed Nanyang. By 2021, the gap had expanded to 30k yuan—nearly with a one-hundred-billion-yuan-per-year pace difference—pulling far ahead. In 2025, Xiangyang and Nanyang’s GDP were 96.9M yuan and 611.39B yuan, respectively, increasing by 2.1% and 6.5% year-on-year. The gap narrowed to 945.99 billion yuan.

To outsiders, Xiangyang was positioned as a provincial-level sub-central city as early as 2003, and with support from provincial-level policies it developed quickly. Nanyang, however, only achieved “upgrading” in 2021, entering a fast track of development. Especially in the past two years, Xiangyang’s development speed has slowed due to the auto industry’s transformation and upgrading; in 2024 it was overtaken by Yichang behind it. Nanyang has also started to take the lead in growth rate over Xiangyang.

Image source: Nanyang Release

Qin Zunwen believes this is mainly because Xiangyang is still in a transition period and its industrial structure is relatively heavy. The auto industry has a large share, but the transition toward new energy and intelligent connected vehicles is slower than in leading regions. New industries such as new-energy new materials and the low-altitude economy have not yet formed sufficient support.

From the overall development picture of the entire province, Xiangyang and Nanyang are in similar positions. Both are provincial-level sub-central cities, ranked third in GDP within the province, shouldering the mission of coordinating, centering, and driving regional development. In its Government Work Report, Nanyang emphasizes that it should “strengthen the sub-central city, build a growth pole, and stride toward new brilliance,” while Xiangyang should speed up the construction of a truly deserving “sub-central city,” striving to build a regional central city for development in central and western China, better guiding the Han River basin, radiating the Nanyang-Xiangyang Basin, and linking up high-quality development in the northwest of Hubei.

This also brings new expectations for the development of both cities. In Qin Zunwen’s view, both Xiangyang and Nanyang are national comprehensive transportation hub cities, and advancing the modern logistics industry is very important for building sub-central city status. As a golden node of Han River shipping, Xiangyang has actively integrated into the construction of the Han-Xiang-Gui inland waterway transport corridor, striving to shape new advantages for a comprehensive hub of “South port, North rail.”

“The Han-Xiang-Gui canal runs from Ankang in Shaanxi to Xiangyang, and then to Wuhan, and then goes to the north coast for sea export via the Xiang River and the Xiang-Gui canal. Nanyang has also been planning to align the Tangbai River with Xiangyang entering the Han River as early as seven or eight years ago, and Henan has provided strong support for this.” Qin Zunwen said.

Not long ago, when investigating and researching Nanyang Municipal Party Committee Secretary Wang Zhihui on the Nandan Expressway and the Mianxi Expressway, he emphasized the need to build high-quality national comprehensive transportation hub cities.

To achieve integrated development, we should strongly drive deep integration of “transportation + industry,” “transportation + culture and tourism,” and “transportation + logistics.” By developing large transportation into large logistics, promoting big commerce and trade, and linking up major industries, we should concretely convert hub advantages into development strengths. We must plan more deeply and more practically, scientifically formulate the transportation plan for the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, and plan and implement a batch of major transportation projects with strategic significance, overall implications, and leading roles—so that “hard connectivity” in transportation can keep the cycle running smoothly, and we can focus on building a leading national hub-economy demonstration zone.

This is also a snapshot of how provincial-level sub-central cities leverage their location advantages to build up momentum for upgrading. Entering the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, for Xiangyang and Nanyang, building national comprehensive transportation hub cities and converting hub advantages into development strengths is a key step in reshaping urban development momentum.

Daily Economic News