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Article: Hangzhou: heaven on earth.
- Article from:
- Focus on Geography
- Article date:
- September 22, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 American Geographical Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Introduction
Since China's first unification over 2000 years ago, Hangzhou (125 miles southwest of Shanghai) has been a trading post and administration center. During the Ming Dynasty [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (1368-1644 A.D.), it became the capital of southeastern China's Zhejiang Provincei [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.], which is one of the smallest (less than 100,000 square kilometers) and most densely populated provinces, with a multi-ethnic population of less than seven million. It was so named because the Qiantang River [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] winds through this province, (" zhe jiang" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] literally refers ...