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Originally named the Chinese Nationalist Party Army Officer Institute (中國國民黨陸軍軍官學校), the academy was located on Chengzhou Island offshore from the Whampoa dock in Guangzhou, thus earning its common name. It was comprised of six departments: political, instruction, training, management, medic and supplies.
The academy concentrated the revolutionary military talents at the time. Chiang Kai-shek was appointed the first principal of the academy. Zhou Enlai, Hu Han-min (胡漢文) and Wang Ching-wei were among the instructors in the political department, and He Yingqin (何應欽) and Ye Jianyin (葉劍英) were once military instructors.
Whampoa Academy initially had many instructors from the Soviet Union; those instructors left, however, after Chiang Kai-shek's break with the Communist Party of China (CCP) in the late 1920s. In 1950, after the Communist victory on mainland China and the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the academy was relocated to Fengshan, Kaohsiung County, Taiwan, where it remains today.
Many prestigious commanders, Kuomintang and Communist, graduated from this academy, including: