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Chinese Name: 千岛湖风景区
English Name: Thousand Island Lake, Xin’anjiang Reservoir, Qiandao Lake, Qiandao Hu Fengjing Qu
Location: Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province
Type: Reservoir
Rating Level: AAAAA (5A)
Brief Introduction
Thousand Island Lake千岛湖, also known as Xin’an River Reservoir新安江水库, is located in Chun’an County淳安县, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province with the best water quality in China.
It is 129 kilometers away from Hangzhou in the east and 140 kilometers away from Mount Huangshan in the west, covering an area of 982 square kilometers and located in the hinterland of the Yangtze River Delta.
Thousand Island Lake has a good ecological environment, with 448 square kilometers of forest area and the forest coverage rate is as high as 81%, island forest coverage reaches 93%.
1,078 large islands dot the lake and a few thousand smaller ones are scattered across it, and this is why Thousand Island gets its name. It is the largest artificial lake in China with different sizes of islands and thick or thin distribution of islands.
The water visibility of Thousand Island Lake is up to 12 meters, and the water quality reaches the national class I surface water standard. The normal high water level of the Qiandao Lake is 108 meters, and the reservoir capacity is 17.84 billion m3, equivalent to the capacity of 3,184 West Lakes. The water level of the lake varies widely, reaching a depth of 100 meters and an average depth of 34 meters.
In 2010, Thousand Island Lake was rated as an AAAAA Tourist Attractions of China.
What is worth to visit and see？
Main islands
Now the main traveling subarea of Thousand Island Lake is divided into the Central Lake Area, Southeast Lake Area, and surrounding attractions with rural themes.
Meifeng Island梅峰岛 is located on the Zhuangyuan Peninsula状元半岛 at the western cessation of the Central Lake Area. It is the best place for natural sightseeing. There is a saying that goes, people fail to see the true face of Thousand-Island Lake without going to Meifeng Island.
Longshan Island龙山岛 is the largest island in the Central Lake Area of Thousand Island Lake, with an area of 3.5 hectares and an altitude of 208 meters. The island has such scenic spots as Hai Rui Temple海瑞祠, Shixia Academy石峡书院, Small Square Pond半亩方塘, and Bell Tower. Longshan is the only landmark cultural heritage in Thousand Island Lake Tourism Area.
Lock Island锁岛 is the world of locks, a total of 160,000 kinds of heart locks are hung all over the island, built China’s first lock museum — China lock exhibition hall and the safety lock of the Guinness World Record also settled here.
Historic culture
In 2009, it has been found lots of ancient cultural sites and ancient tombs and other sites in Thousand Island Lake, such as the Neolithic Age cultural sites of Wulong Island五龙岛, the Spring and Autumn period cultural sites of small Tang Wu小塘坞, Spring and Autumn and the Warring States to Jin Dynasty cultural sites of Shuidui水碓.
There are also ancient temple buildings such as the bone tower of Misan Island蜜山岛, Misan Nunnery蜜山庵and Yinsan Nunnery尹山庵, as well as ancient tombs such as Ye Cemetery叶公墓 and Zheng Yunzhong Tomb郑允中墓.
There are also some ancient architecture such as Hai Rui Temple海瑞祠, Shixia Academy石峡书院 as well as some widely distributed residential buildings, ancestral halls, temples, etc during the Ming and Qing dynasties in the countryside.
In the winter of 1974, a group of archaeologists was exploring the cultural relics and historic sites in the upper reaches of the Xin’an River when they found an ancient human tooth fossil. According to scientific identification, this fossil of human teeth is the type of Liujiang man in the later stage of the Pleistocene Century, about 50,000 years before now.
In 1959, the “Lion City狮城” and “Hecheng贺城”, which began during the Han and Tang dynasties, were submerged under the Qiandao Lake overnight for the construction of the Xin’anjiang hydropower station. On January 7, 2011, the ancient city was rated as a provincial-level cultural relic protection zone.
