Zhejiang Province

Geography

"One who has not visited Suzhou and Hangzhou in this life will have died in vain."

-Chinese proverb

Zhejiang (also spelled Chekiang) is one of the smallest but most economically successful provinces in China today. Its name is derived from the ancient toponym of its chief waterway, the Qiantang River, which flows into the East China Sea just below the provincial capital of Hangzhou (also spelled Hangchow). Here some four-hundred islands, large and small, make up the Zhoushan Archipelago, of which Putuo Island, one of the four major sacred mountains of Chinese Buddhism, is the most famous.  Read more...

History

It was here that the Hemudu people cultivated rice almost 7,000 years ago-the earliest known cultivation of paddy rice in history. The name Yue-as in Yue opera-is often used to refer to ancient Zhejiang Province. It is the name of a former state which, when it conquered the kingdom of Wu (whose heartland was in modern Jiangsu province) in 473 B.C.E., brought northern Zhejiang under its sway. Later Yue was itself annexed by the state of Chu, during the Warring States period (475-221 B.C.E.), when one kingdom was pitted against another, until the powerful Qin dynasty ended the fighting once and for all and unified all of China, laying the foundation of the first Chinese empire.  Read more...