Introduction

The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is the earliest and longest man-made canal in the world. With a total distance of more than 1700 kilometers, it starts from Beijing and ends in Hangzhou. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal plays a great role in the development and exchange of economy and culture between southern and northern China, especially in the aspect of the industrial and agricultural development in the canal line area. It is called the "Great Water Wall", an allusion to the Great Wall. The Grand Canal crosses through Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei Province, Shandong Province, Jiangsu Province, and Zhejiang Province. It links five great water systems in China: Haihe River, Yellow River, Huaihe River, Yangtze River and Qiantang River.

The Grand Canal traverses the metropolitan area of Hangzhou for a length of around eleven kilometers. In recent years, while taking care to protect and renovate the canal by dredging, supplying water, and restricting navigation and transportation on the canal, the local government also carried out a series of tourism development projects, turning this section of the canal into a leisure and entertainment resort serving both local residents and travelers. The China Grand Canal Museum is built near Gongchen Bridge, giving the visitor a thorough, detailed knowledge of the history and culture as it relates to the Grand Canal. The visitors also has access to two landscape belts along the banks of the canal, as well as three parks, six bridge ports and fifteen bridges. A water-bus service on the Hangzhou section of the Grand Canal is now available, offering the visitor a chance to enjoy the Grand Canal’s scenery in less than two hours.

Other sites of historical interest along the Hangzhou section of the Grand Canal include: Hangzhou Customs Administration of former Qing Dynasty, Fuyi Granary, the Fengshan Water Gate on the Canal (built in Yuan Dynasty), Stone Pagoda at Xiangji Temple, transport service shops on the Xixing Classic Street, etc. Furthermore, Xiaohe Historical Street and Qiaoxi Block in Gongshu District have both undergone massive facelifts to display to visitors the ways of life at the ports of the canal in old times.

While enjoying the Grand Canal as a tourist resource, it is worth bearing in mind that the canal is still commercially alive, undertaking heavy workloads of transportation. The local governments have kept investing in the maintenance of this essential transportation route. A new plan has been drawn up recently to upgrade the Zhejiang section of the canal to China's Class III inland river navigation standards, making it navigable for vessels of the 1000t class. In addition, a planned diversion waterway of about 40 kilometers will be excavated in the Hangzhou area to divert cargo transport from the tourist canal section.