Daozhou Dragon Boat, also known as Daozhou Dragon Boat, is a characteristic traditional folk activity in Hunan Province. The Dragon Boat Festival in Daozhou began in the Song Dynasty to commemorate Qu Yuan. Today, the Daozhou Dragon Boat Race still retains the ancient tradition. Each dragon boat has a fixed name, and the bow carvings also have different symbols such as dragons, tigers, phoenixes, eagles, and cats. By 2010, this characteristic folk culture has been included in Daozhou as one of the important activities to build the Daozhou Dragon Boat Cultural Industry. In 2002, Daozhou was awarded the title of "Hometown of Dragon Boats" by the Provincial People's Government. The Dragon Boat Festival in Daozhou began in the Song Dynasty to commemorate Qu Yuan. Today, the Daozhou Dragon Boat Race still retains the ancient tradition. Each dragon boat has a fixed name, and the bow carvings also have different symbols such as dragons, tigers, phoenixes, eagles, and cats. By 2010, this folk activity has been included in Daozhou as one of the important activities to build the Daozhou Dragon Boat Cultural Industry. The "Daozhou Dragon Boat Race" is mainly held in Daojiang Town, the county seat, and the five surrounding townships and 33 administrative villages. From the first to the fifth day of May and the Mid-Autumn Festival every year, it is fiercely held in the waters of Xiaoshui and Lianxi River, from Wuzhou Village in Wanjiazhuang in the south to Liyuba Village in Shangguan Township in the north. The Daozhou Dragon Boat Race was inherited and developed by the people. Although it was temporarily discontinued due to the subjective assumptions of the rulers, it did not extinguish its inheritance. Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin once issued an imperial decree three times, prohibiting the people in Hunan and Sichuan from "dragon boating"; according to records, in the 36th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, the state official Han Ziqi confiscated all 40 dragon boats of the people of Daozhou and used them to build a "Shuinan Floating Bridge" on the Xiaoshui River. Another year, the state official banned Xiaoshui competitions under the pretext of maintaining public order. Dongyangfang in the county seat quietly moved its 11 dragon boats of "Nine Dragons and Two Tigers" to Damtang in the north of the city for competition, and left a poem "The Xiaojiang River is quiet on the Dragon Boat Festival, but who knows that the sea of people is in the northern suburbs. In the dream, the governor was unaware, and the nine dragons and two tigers were in climax." By the Qing Dynasty, the dragon boat race in Daozhou had become a grand spectacle. The influence of the dragon boat in Daozhou on the folks was far-reaching. The saying "On May 5, the dragon boats were launched and the drums were broken" shows the fierceness and lively atmosphere of the competition. As a national "intangible cultural heritage", the scale of the dragon boat race in Daozhou has become larger and larger since 2006. The Daozhou Chronicle, which was compiled in the third year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty, recorded: "On May Dragon Boat Festival (in Daozhou), the city dragon boats competed in the East and West Islands, the drums were loud, and the spectators were crowded." In the past, the ruling class was very taboo. The "dragon" in the dragon boat was a symbol of the "Son of Heaven and Emperor". In order to avoid the taboo of the emperor, the people of Daozhou changed the bow of the dragon boat to "tiger head, phoenix head" and other bows. On May 24, 2021, the Dragon Boat Festival (Daozhou Dragon Boat Custom) was announced by the State Council as the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage representative projects.