Natural Geography

Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, is the provincial center in Economy, Culture, Science and Education. It is a famous city in history and culture and also an important national tourist city with the beautiful scenery. Located at the southern wing of the Yangtze River Delta, the west end of Hangzhou Bay, the lower reaches of Qiantang River and the southern end of the Grand Canal (Beijing-Hangzhou), it is one of the most important central cities in the southern wing of the Yangtze River Delta and a hub of transportation in southeast China. The geographic position of the city proper is latitude 30° 16' north and longitude 120°12' east.Hangzhou owns the natural environment integrating rivers, lakes and hills. The hilly area of the city accounts for 65.6 percent of the total, which concentrate in the west, middle and south, the plain 26.4 percent, which scatter in northeast, rivers, lakes, ponds and reservoirs 8 percent. The world’s longest cannel known as the Great Cannel winds through the city as well as the Qiangtang river which is noted for the magnifi cent view of tidal rush.Hangzhou has a subtropical monsoon climate with four distinct seasons. It is warm and humid with suffi cient sunshine and plentiful rainfall. In 2008, its average annual temperature is 17.5℃ , the average relative humidity 70 percent, the annual rainfall 1,273.9millimeters and the annual sunshine time 1,641.2 hours.

Natural Resources

Hangzhou has long been reputed as the Land of Fish and Rice, the Land of Silk and Paradise on the Earth with lengthwiseand sidewise rivers and densely scattered lakes. Benefiting from the geographic features, Hang zhou is blessed for it s agricultural production with rich myriad plants, forests, animals and birds. Man-cultivated plants for food and oil were grown around the city. In addition, there are over 260 breeds of economic plants such as fruit, tea, mulberry trees and fl owers. Hangzhou is renowned for raising mulberry and silkworm. Also noteworthy is the national famous tea known as the dragon well tea, which is originated here. A great variety of species grow in Hangzhou, including 10 national fi rst-level protected animals, 64 second-level protected animals;3 first-level protected and 18 secondlevel protected plants. Hangzhou has an agrarian area of 2.731 million Chinese acres, and 0.41 Chinese acre per capital. The forest covers an area of 1.08 million hectare, with a coverage rate 64.3 percent and the mineral resources include large- and middle-scale metal and nonmetal deposits. A kind of rare bloodstones in the world are producted in Changhua of Lin’an city, which are the art treasure in the collectstones and sealstones.