History

Hangzhou boasts a history of 8,000 years since the first local civilization appeared in this territory and 5,000 years since the city was founded. The two civilizations, named Kua Hu Qiao some 8 millenniums ago and Liang Zhu some 5 millenniums ago, shed the light on the Chinese nation and made Hangzhou one of the birthplaces of the Chinese civilization. Hang, the first character of its name, referred specifically to the boat the Emperor Da Yu once took from the beginning. As the historical record said, the emperor in late years was once on his tour via Hui Ji to a place where he landed and named it Hang (literally means boat). This is the earliest evidence ever found in written history. The city was later the battlefield between the Wu State and the Yue State during the Spring and Autumn Period. Under the reign of the first emperor of the Qin dynasty the place was identified as a county to incorporate the two areas of Yuhang and Qiantang. Qin Wang Mountain (named Jiang Tai Mountain toady) and a stone to which the emperor’s boat was tightened are the two relics he left on his tour over east China. By the Eastern Han Dynasty the West Lake came into existence during the project of seawall. In the ninth year under the reign of the Emperor Yangdi of the Sui Dynasty (i.e. 589A.D), the prefecture of Qiantang was abolished and the town was renamed as Hangzhou, thus the city acquired the name familiar to people today. As the project of the Grand Canal was completed in 610 A.D, the geographical excellence as the southernmost edge to the canal began to later make the city a thriving town during the Tang Dynasty. Together with Guangzhou and Yangzhou, the three were the top trading posts in China at that time. Known as the most revered city of southeast China, Hangzhou was described in a poem to be “a place of unparalleled geographical excellence southeast to the Yangtze and once served as the capital of the ancient Wu Kingdom. Thus prosperity has existed in Qiantang, as what the city has been named, for ages. Willows clothed with fog aside, adorned with painted bridges and curtains, it has been densely populated with tens of thousands of houses here and there”. As both the founding emperor of the Wuyue Kingdom (907-978) and the Suthern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) chose Hangzhou as the capital, it therefore numbered among China’s seven ancient capitals in history. The West Lake, as being dredged for a better look, won the city a high reputation that “there was no city paralleling the paradise but Hangzhou and Suzhou.” As the then national central hub of governance, economy and culture, Hangzhou reached the peak in urban development in the Southern Song dynasty. During the succeeding dynasties of the Yuan, Ming and Qing it was still considered the richest town in southeast China in spite of being no longer the state capital. As the saying goes “Of the thirty six west lakes across the country，only the one in Hangzhou stands out.” In the Qing dynasty, the Emperor Kang Xi had been to the city for five times and the Emperor Qian Long six times to stay in the palace at the Solitary Hill and go for a tour over the West Lake. The county of Qian Tang and Ren He were merged in 1912 to be the new county named Hang, and the municipality of Hangzhou was formally founded in 1927 to have jurisdiction of the West Lake as a whole as well as the county. In 1929, Hangzhou pioneered in the national history by being the host to the West Lake Expo even appealing to the rest of the world. The event was awakened in 2000 to attach the city to the global community. With the strategy of development re-defined from the era of the West Lake to that of Qian Tang River, Hangzhou yielded even more public recognition as he Chinese Silicon Valley”, “the City of Information Technology”, “the Capital of Cartoon and Animation”, “the city of Leisure Life and “the City of Top Life Quality in China”. The city, by setting the pace in biological harmony development, cross-border electronic commerce and self-dependence for industrial creation, is making strides for better life quality, social harmony and the new strategy of being well-off in all respects.