Qualla: Changzhou Island

Changzhou Island: Introduction

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chintunglee, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1924, Sun Yat-sen chose a small Pearl River island east of Canton to establish a military academy for the officers of his new revolutionary movement. The island was called Changzhou — known in English as Dane Island, after the Danish sailors who had once used it for repairs and burials during the Canton trade era. What happened on that island over the next two years did more than train soldiers: it shaped the leadership of modern China in ways that are still being sorted out a century later. Changzhou Island is about 11.5 square kilometers of low-lying river delta land, modest enough on a map. Its history is anything but.

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Image: Chintunglee | CC BY-SA 4.0

Changzhou Island: The Foreign Cemetery by the River

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit drnan tu from Shenzhen, China, CC BY-SA 2.0. Before the military academy, before the revolutionary politics, there was the anchorage. The Whampoa or Huangpu anchorage — the stretch of Pearl River around Changzhou and nearby Pazhou Island — was, under the Canton System, the designated stopping point for all foreign trading s...

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Image: drnan tu from Shenzhen, China | CC BY-SA 2.0

Changzhou Island: The Whampoa Military Academy

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gzdavidwong, CC BY-SA 4.0. Sun Yat-sen founded the Whampoa Military Academy on Changzhou Island in 1924. It was established to create a professional officer corps for the National Revolutionary Army — the military arm of Sun's Nationalist movement, the Kuomintang (KMT). The academy was designed with Soviet...

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Image: Gzdavidwong | CC BY-SA 4.0

Changzhou Island: The Zhongshan Incident

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ASDFGHJ (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. In March 1926, Changzhou Island was again at the center of events. The Zhongshan Incident — named for the gunboat Zhongshan — unfolded at the Whampoa anchorage and had immediate and lasting consequences. Chiang Kai-shek used the incident, in which the gunboat was moved to Whampoa...

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Image: ASDFGHJ (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

Changzhou Island: Changzhou Today

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chintunglee, CC BY-SA 4.0. Changzhou Island is now administered as part of Guangzhou's Huangpu District. The island — 11.5 square kilometers in total, 8.5 square kilometers of dry land — is linked to Guangzhou's road network by a bridge to neighboring Xiaoguwei Island. A future extension of Guangzhou Metro...

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Image: Chintunglee | CC BY-SA 4.0