(; Postal map spelling: Hangchow) is a sub-provincial city in the People's Republic of China and the capital of Zhejiang province. Located 180 km southwest of Shanghai, the population in the city proper is now around 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 of China for much of the last 1,000 years, Hangzhou is also well-known for its beautiful natural scenery, with the West Lake (Xī Hú, 西湖) as the most noteworthy location.
History
The celebrated Neolithic culture of Hemudu has been discovered to have inhabited in Yuyao, an area (now a city) a hundred kilometers east of the City of Hangzhou, 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 from 907 to 978 during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. Named Xifu at the time, it was one of the three great centers of culture in southern China during the tenth century, along with Nanjing and Chengdu. Leaders of Wuyue were noted patrons of the arts, and especially of Buddhism and associated temple architecture and artwork. It also became a cosmopolitan center, drawing scholars from throughout China and conducting diplomacy not only with neighboring Chinese states, but also with Japan, Korea, and the Khitans.
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 was once a lagoon tens of thousands of years ago. Silt then blocked the way to the sea and the lake was formed. A drill in the lake-bed in 1975 found the sediment of the sea, which confirmed its origin. Artificial preservation prevented the lake to evolve into a marshland. The Su Dike built by Su Shi, and the Bai Dike built by Bai Juyi, a famous Tang Dynasty Poet who was once the governor of Hangzhou, are both built out of the mud cleaned from the bottom of the Lake. The Lake is surrounded by hills on north and west side. The Baochu Pagoda sits on the Baoshi Hill to the north of the Lake.