Hangzhou Hotels

Hangzhou is in Zhejiang Province, China. It is one of the most important tourism cities in China, famous for its natural beauty and historical and cultural heritages. It is the political, economic and cultural center of the Zhejiang province as well. Famed for its natural scenery, Hangzhou and its West Lake have been immortalized by countless poets and artists. The city was the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty from 1127 until the Mongol invasion of 1276, during that time the city's population is estimated to have been as high as one million, making it the largest city in the world. Even Marco Polo claimed to have passed through, calling it "beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world". With the gradual silting up of its harbor, much of the city's trade and industry passed to nearby Shanghai, but the city still has a bustling population of 1.7 million and ranks as one of China's most popular tourist attractions. Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang, one of China's smallest but most prosperous and powerful provinces, stands at the southern end of the Yangtze delta some 180 km southwest of Shanghai. Marco Polo visited Hangzhou and described it as "the finest and most splendid city in the world". This is largely thanks to the West Lake (Xihu), a natural lagoon formed some 2,000 years ago as the tidal waters of the Qiantang River gradually silted up. West Lake is a large freshwater lake, bordered on three sides by hills. Its banks and islands are blanketed with small gardens and temples.