Hankou Customs House (Jianghan Customs Museum)

The Hankou Customs House is a clock-towered building completed in 1924 on the Hankou riverfront, built during the foreign-concession era when Hankou operated as one of China's busiest treaty-port customs stations. Its clock tower, modeled loosely on European civic architecture of the period, remains one of the most recognizable landmarks on the old Bund skyline, visible from Hankou Riverside Park and much of the surrounding waterfront. The building now houses the Jianghan Customs Museum, a small free museum documenting the history of the customs house, Hankou's role as a treaty port from the mid-1800s, and the wider concession-era history of foreign trade on the Yangtze. Exhibits include historical photographs, customs documents, and models of the old riverfront as it appeared under foreign administration. A visit to the museum's compact exhibition halls takes about an hour to an hour and a half; because it is a working government-associated building with only part of it open to the public, hours are more restricted than nearby attractions, and visiting on a weekday morning avoids any queuing at the entrance. The clock tower itself, visible from outside at any time, is worth a stop even without going inside, particularly at dusk when its tower is lit above the riverfront buildings.