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Hangzhou
KNOWLEDGE OF Hangzhou
Hangzhou (Chinese: æ?å·ž; Hanyu Pinyin: HángzhÅ?u; 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.
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 3,600 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 (�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 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 3,600 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 (�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.
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