Hangzhou West Lake Most beautiful big lake in Hangzhou.... Revisited

West Lake (Chinese: 西湖; Wu Chinese pronunciation: [si ɦu]) is a freshwater lake in Hangzhou, China. It is divided into five sections by three causeways. There are numerous temples, pagodas, gardens, and natural/artificial islands within the lake. Gushan (孤山) is the largest natural island and three artificial islands: Xiaoyingzhou (小瀛洲), Huixin Pavilion (湖心亭), and Ruan Gongdun (阮公墩) stand at the middle of the lake. Leifeng Pagoda (雷峰塔) and Baochu Pagoda (保俶塔) are separated by the lake. Mirroring each other, the basic pattern of "one mountain, two towers, three islands, three banks, and five lakes" is formed.
West Lake is located at No. 1 Longjing Road, Xihu District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, in the west of Hangzhou City. The total area of the scenic spot is 49 square kilometers, the catchment area is 21.22 square kilometers, and the lake area is 6.38 square kilometers.
It was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011, described as having "influenced garden design in the rest of China as well as Japan and Korea over the centuries" and reflecting "an idealized fusion between humans and nature".
Over 2,000 years ago, West Lake was still a part of the Qiantang River. Due to soil sedimentation, the feet of Wu Mountain and Baoshi Mountains, the surrounding mountains on the northern and southern sides of the lake, gradually stretched to form shoal heads. Later, these sand spits slowly merged into a bank, to which a lagoon emerged to the west; this was the old West Lake of the Qin and Han dynasties. "West Lake Dream Searching" (西湖夢尋), written by Zhang Dai, relates the story that Qin Shi Huang visited the area and moored his boat to a stone later developed into the Big Stone Buddhist Temple. The stone was located on Baoshi Mountain, north of the West Lake, and can still be seen.
The lake was once a lagoon tens of thousands of years ago. Silt then blocked the way to the sea and the lake was formed. A drill in the lake-bed in 1975 found the sediment of the sea, which confirmed its origin. Artificial preservation prevented the lake from evolving into a marshland.
At the beginning of the Song dynasty's Yuanyou era (1086-1094), another great poet, Su Shi (also known as Su Dongpo), came to Hangzhou to serve as its governor. At that time, the farmers suffered greatly drought again, due to overgrowth of the weeds at the bottom of the lake clogging the irrigation ducts. He ordered dredging of the lake and piled up all the mud into another causeway, in the style of Bai Causeway, but much wider and nearly three times as long: he also planted willow trees along its banks. This causeway was later named after him as the "Su Causeway". There are six bridges along the 2.6 km (1.6 mi) Su Causeway (蘇堤), and they are called separately Yingbo (映波), Suolan (锁澜), Wangshan (望山), Yadi (压堤), Dongpu (东浦), and Kuahong (跨虹) Bridge, which all symbolize the characteristics of the bridge itself and also expose the structural beauty and its colorful connotation. "Dawn on the Su Causeway in Spring 蘇堤春曉" is one of the attractions.

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