Top Reasons to Visit Hangzhou

Top Reasons to Visit Hangzhou

Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, is the city on everyone’s lips from ancient time until recently. But why is that? If you have looked through a China guidebook, you might have seen pictures of the beautiful West Lake, or read about the delectable regional cuisine, but these are not the (only) reasons why the 2016 G20 Summit took place in Hangzhou.

During the seven-day holiday 2017, this city received 12.85 million visitors from home and abroad. Oct.1, the first single day, received over 1.98million people. More than 3.53 million visitors swarmed into the Westlake Scenic Area during the first four days of October. Why did Hangzhou attract so many visitors? Let’s take a look.

Advantages in history
Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province and one of the seven ancient capitals of China(another six is Xi’an, Luoyang, Nanjing, Beijing, Kaifeng and Anyang), bear the reputation "there is a paradise in heaven, while there are Suzhou and Hangzhou on earth."  It is a hot city for domestic and international tourists as a modern metropolis with most fashionable enjoyment and a historical ancient town pervaded by the delicacy of spirit in humanity and traditional Chinese life style. 

Hangzhou was described by Italian traveler Marco Polo as the finest and most luxurious city in the world. The West Lake scenic area contains over 60 cultural relic sites and several attractions of natural beauty, and a cruise on the lake is a good option to view several sites. Hangzhou is also a good place to visit a tea plantation. 

Advantages in transportation
Highly developed traffic of both airline and waterway transportation is guarantee for tourists worldwide to arrive and leave safely and quickly. 

Hangzhou International Airport, one of the four aviation ports in China(another three is Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai) built in 2000, has leaped to top 100 airports in the world and China’s top 10 airports in passenger throughput.

Hangzhou offers the most comprehensive free public bicycle system. As China’s first cities to implement public bike in 2008, Hangzhou public bikes topped the list in terms of the usage, costs, convenience and quantity. By 2020, Hangzhou public bikes will reach 175,000. By then, it could be the largest public bicycle system in China or even in the world. 

Hangzhou locates in the middle of the Yangtse River Delta,with a very short distance from Shanghai. It only takes only 1 hour from Shanghai to Hangzhou by the highspeed train. Hangzhou is the first and only city with high-speed rail crosses in China. The high-speed rails run into all four directions with a 350 km/h speed: Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed rail to the northeast, Hangzhou-Ningbo high-speed rail to the southeast, Hangzhou-Changsha high-speed rail to the southwest and Hangzhou-Nanjing high-speed rail to the northwest.  Besides, Hangzhou has Asia’s largest railway station - Hangzhou East Railway Station.

Advantages in world-renowned Hangzhou style cuisine
Dongpo pork ( Chinese: ???): fried pork belly stewed in soy sauce and wine.

Beggar's chicken (Chinese: ???): which originated from Jiangsu but gained its popularity in Hangzhou and thus considered a Hangzhou cuisine.

West Lake fish in vinegar (Chinese: ????)

West Lake brasenia schreberi soup (Chinese: ?????)

Fried Shrimps with Long Jing Tea Leaves(Chinese: ????)

Advantages in business
Hangzhou, or China’s Silicon Valley among friends, provides opportunities in both some of China’s largest companies, and some of the newest, most innovative start-ups. Among the most famous companies are:

Alibaba Group – The company founded by Jack Ma, is the umbrella company covering e-commerce, cloud computing, mobile media and entertainment. Most known are: Taobao, Tmall, and Aliyun (cloud and hosting)

Ant Financial (an Alibaba spin off) – The company behind Alipay, which is the preferred mobile payment method for hundreds of millions of Chinese people

We Doctor – An online health care provider connecting its 110 million users with more than 1900 hospitals across China

Other Reasons To Visit Hangzhou

1. By now, Hangzhou is honored with two world heritage sites - the West Lake Scenic Area and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. When other scenic areas increase the entrance fees, the West Lake Scenic Area, as the only lake cultural heritage in China, still keeps free of charge.

2. Hangzhou again won the title of the most congenial retirement city in China in September 2014 for the fourth time since 2011, according to China’s Fortune magazine.

3. Hangzhou is acknowledged as one of the 23 healthy cities in China, according to the CASS in 2013. The comprehensive evaluation indexes include healthy economy, healthy culture, healthy society, healthy environment and healthy management.

4. This city has forest coverage rate of more than 65%, ranking first among China’s vice-provincial cities.

5.Hangzhou is China’s only city that cars give way to pedestrians at zebra crosswalks.  Three bold Chinese characters “???” (“Car give way to pedestrian”) on zebra crosswalks remind vehicles to reduce speed. Even electronic signs are stalled on high traffic roads. What’s more, a crosswalk project is added to the city’s driving test. By now, the comity rate in Hangzhou’s main roads reaches 93.91%, according to the Nanjing Daily.

6. As China’s second city to own rapid transit, Hangzhou has the country’s leading bus system and rapid transit technology.

7. Hangzhou is the only comprehensive pilot of metropolitan economic reforms.

8. This city can warm your heart. All libraries in Hangzhou equally open to everybody who only has to follow the city’s public guidelines. Those who wear slippers or vests will never be kept outside.