Xiaoxiang (traditional Chinese: 瀟湘; simplified Chinese: 潇湘; pinyin: Xiāo Xiāng), also transliterated XiaoXiang. Hsiao Hsiang, and Chiu Chiang, in some older sources, refers to the "lakes and rivers" region in south central China, more-or-less corresponding with Hunan, China, south of the middle-reaches of the Yangzi River. Xiaoxiang is less a precise geographic entity than a concept. Xiaoxiang is used in Classical Chinese poetry and in literature for symbolic purposes, in part because this was a significant area, which at least through Song Dynasty China was still considered a wild place full of malaria, barbarians, and wild beasts. Indeed, for much of early Chinese history, this area belonged not to China, but to the independent state of Chu. Beginning at least with Qu Yuan, in the Third Century BCE, this region became to symbolically represent the unjust exile of a talented minister or government official by an unappreciative king or emperor.
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The name Xiaoxiang comes in part from the name of the Xiang River, which rises in the mountains of Guangxi and flows into Dongting Lake. There is a modern Xiao River, which is a tributary of the Xiang River, and joins it near present day cities of Yongzhou and Changsha; however the name Xiaoxiang predates the bestowing of that name on the Xiao River: originally the adjective xiao, meaning "clear and deep", was used to descriptively for the Xiang River.[2]
The Xiaoxiang region is the somewhat imaginative location of the various eponymous and highly symbolic Eight Views of Xiaoxiang series of eight paintings and/or poetry verses.