West Lake

West Lake's present shape is largely the work of people. Between the 9th and 12th centuries repeated dredging created two causeways and three artificial islands. The poet-governor Bai Juyi was among the first to call it West Lake and dredged it in 822; the Bai Causeway is named in his memory. In 1089 another great poet-official, Su Shi, built the Su Causeway from dredged silt, with six bridges along its length.

From the Southern Song dynasty onwards, the Ten Scenes of West Lake were named as idealised poetic views, such as Spring Dawn at Su Causeway and Three Pools Mirroring the Moon, and this way of composing landscape influenced garden design across China and beyond, including in Japan and Korea.

UNESCO inscribed the West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou on the World Heritage List in 2011. Leifeng Pagoda, first built in 975 and linked to the Legend of the White Snake, collapsed in 1924 and was rebuilt in 2002.

West Lake is Hangzhou's shared back garden. Since the city removed fences and entrance fees in 2002 under the slogan of returning the lake to the people, it has become a place for daily exercise, family walks and courting couples as much as for tourism. Tea culture runs deep: Longjing tea is picked in the surrounding hills each spring, and lakeside teahouses are a traditional place to sit and talk. Hangzhou also has a long Islamic heritage; the Phoenix Mosque on Middle Zhongshan Road, founded in the Tang dynasty, is one of the oldest mosques on China's coast.