Quicknation    China Hangzhou

Images of Hangzhou: G Y AOL AV MSN News of Hangzhou: G Y Books of Hangzhou: B

Hangzhou ; Wade-Giles: Hang-chou) is a sub-provincial city in China, and the capital of Zhejiang province. Located 180 km southwest of Shanghai, the population in the city proper is now 1.75 million. By the end of 2003, Hangzhou had a registered population of 6.4 million including an urban registered population of 3.9 million. As one of the most renowned and prosperous cities in China for much of the last 1000 years, Hangzhou is also well known for its beautiful natural scenery, with the West Lake (Xi Hu, 西湖) as the most noteworthy location.

table

Hangzhou is located in northern Zhejiang province, eastern China, at the southern end of the Grand Canal of China, on the plain of the mid-lower reaches of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang). The prefecture-level region of Hangzhou extends west to the border with the hilly-country Anhui Province, and east to the flat-land Hangzhou Bay. The city centre is built around the eastern and northern sides of the West Lake, just north of the Qiantang River.

The celebrated Neolithic culture of Hemudu has been discovered to have inhabited this area as far back as seven thousand years ago, when rice was first cultivated in southeastern China.

The city of Hangzhou was founded about 2,200 years ago during the Qin Dynasty, it is listed as one of the Seven Ancient Capitals of China, but the city wall was not constructed until the Sui Dynasty (591). It was the capital of the Wuyue Kingdom for more than 200 years, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period.

In 1089, Su Shi constructed a 2.8 km long dike across the West Lake, which Qing Emperor Qianlong considered particularly attractive in the early morning of the spring time. The lake, which itself is artificial, is largely surrounded by mountains. The Baoshi Pagoda sits on one of these hills to the north.

Hangzhou was the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty from the early 12th century until the Mongol invasion of 1276. It served as the seat of the imperial government, a center of trade and entertainment, and the nexus of the main branches of the civil service. During that time, the city was the gravity centre of Chinese civilization as what used to be considered the "central China" in the north was taken by the Jin, an ethnic minority dynasty. Numerous philosophers, politicians, and men of literature, including some of the most celebrated poets in Chinese history such as Su Shi (苏轼), Lu You (陆游), and Xin Qiji (辛弃疾) came here to live and die.

The population of Hangzhou was probably around 200,000 in the year 1100 and may have numbered approximately 450,000 by 1170. In the next century, commercial expansion, an influx of refugees from the conquered north, and the growth of the official and military establishments, led to a corresponding population increase and the city developed well outside its 9th century ramparts. Historian Jacques Gernet has estimated that the population of Hangzhou numbered well over one million by 1276, making it the most populous city in the world at the time. (Official Chinese census figures from the year 1270 listed some 186,330 families in residence and probably failed to count non-residents and soldiers.)

The Venetian Marco Polo visited Hangzhou in the late 13th century and referred to the city as "beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world." "The number and wealth of the merchants, and the amount of goods that passed through their hands, was so enormous that no man could form a just estimate thereof."

Because of the large population and densely-crowded (often multi-story) wooden buildings, Hangzhou was particularly vulnerable to fires. Major conflagrations destroyed large sections of the city in 1132, 1137, 1208, 1229, 1237, and 1275 while smaller fires occurred nearly every year. The 1237 fire alone was recorded to have destroyed 30,000 dwellings. To combat this threat, the government established an elaborate system for fighting fires, erected watchtowers, devised a system of lantern and flag signals to identify the source of the flames and direct the response, and charged more than 3,000 soldiers with the task of putting out fires.

The city remained an important port until the middle Ming Dynasty when its harbor slowly silted up.

Hangzhou was conquered by Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi 蒋介石) during the 1911 revolution which overthrew the Qing Dynasty, China's last period of dynastic rule. On May 3, 1949, the communist army entered the city and opened a new era.

The oldest Buddhist temple in the city is believed to be Lingyin Si ("Soul's Retreat"), which, like most of the other landmarks in this city, has gone through numerous destruction and reconstruction cycles. The contemporary building was finished in 1910.In 970, the Liu-He Pagoda (Six Harmonies Pagoda, 六和塔) was first constructed on the north shore of Qiantang River, towering over 100 meters in Yue-Wang Miao (岳王庙, "King Yue's Temple") near the West Lake was originally constructed in 1221 in memory of General Yue Fei, who lost his life due to political persecution.

Hangzhou's industries have traditionally been textile, silk and machinery, but electronics and other light industries are developing, especially since the start of the new open economy in 1992.

Tea is produced on the outskirts of town at Longjing (龙井) or Dragon's Well. It is the only remaining place where tea is still baked by hand and is said to produce the finest green tea in all of China.

The GDP per capita was ¥38247 (ca. US$4620), ranked no. 8 among 659 Chinese cities.

The 2005 overall rank of Hangzhou among all the Chinese cities is No.5. In 2004, i magazine ranked Hangzhou the number 1 city in China for business.

Hangzhou is also one of China's most popular tourist destinations and is an important part of the local economy. The West Lake has been a tourist destination for many centuries.

Hangzhou has hot and humid summers and cool, relatively dry winters. In July the average high temperature is 33 degrees Celsius; in January the average high is 8 degree Celsius. Hangzhou receives an average annual rainfall of 1450 mm.

Hangzhou is serviced by the Xiaoshan International Airport which has direct flights to Japan, Hong Kong and Macao, as well as numerous domestic routes. Hangzhou Railway Station and Hangzhou East Railway Station serve the city centre, from which one can catch a train to Shanghai and almost anywhere in China. A Shanghai-Hangzhou Maglev Train Line has been proposed. North, east, south and west long-distance bus stations offer regular large and small coach services to towns within Zhejiang province and surrounding provinces.

Public transport within Hangzhou city is primarily in the form of an extensive public bus network. Most standard buses cost one yuan per a one-way trip (any length), and air-conditioned buses (with numbers prefixed with a K) cost two yuan per trip. As the city area is so flat, bicycles were traditionally very popular, and are still popular with the less well-off residents, though many now use electric bicycles and scooters. Taxis are also very common, and are uniformly priced at ten yuan for the first four kilometres, and two yuan per kilometre thereafter. The construction of a subway system had long been planned, and recently received approval from the central government. The completion of the first two lines is expected in 2010.

Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport located just outside of the city in the Xiaoshan district is one of the major secondary international airports in China, with regular passenger flights to most destinations in China and also Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore.

For the urban area of Hangzhou, the next total solar eclipse will be solar eclipse of 2009-Jul-22 which will occurr on July 22, 2009.

because of its prosperity and the beauty of its location. Guangzhou's "Cantonese" cuisine is famous worldwide, and Liuzhou is the source of lanmu wood, the hardwood used to make coffins that are said to preserve the . Suzhou is reputed to have the most beautiful people in China, so the line is sometimes given as "Marry in Suzhou...".

. H.M. Wright, translator. Stanford: University Press, 1962. ISBN 8047-0720-0 (This work focuses almost exclusively on life in Hangzhou in the period described.)