Hangzhou and Huzhou
World Heritage and history in one of the most storied parts of China, not far from Shanghai
AFTER SHANGHAI, I headed southwest on the train to Hangzhou, another big city of roughly 11 million inhabitants.
Hangzhou is one of the seven ancient capitals of China, and contains a fabled scenic lake called the Xihu or West Lake, revered by poets for more than a thousand years.
Hangzhou is on the Quiantang River, which has a broad estuary at the mouth, an estuary that narrows very gradually toward the city and thereby concentrates the force of the incoming tide.
By the time the rising tide gets to Hangzhou, it arrives in the form of a tsunami-like wave called a tidal bore. According to an oceanographic website maintained by the University of Liverpool, as of the time of writing,
The Qiantang river at Hangzhou in China has the largest tidal river bore in the world, which can be over 4 m high, 3 km wide, and travelling with a speed in excess of 24 km hr−1 (15 mph). At certain…
