THOUSAND-ISLAND LAKE

The valley of the river Qiantang or Zhijiang is the longest in the province, 410 km with a watershed covering approximately 420 000 km ². The river takes its source in Huangshan Mountains, in the Anhui. It is known as the Xin'an river, before joining the river Fuchun, then the river Qiantang which flows into the East Sea, some tens of kilometres north of Hangzhou. The valley of the south-west is a marvel. Little known to tourists, it remains very wild in the extreme variety of its successive sections: walk through richly wooded hills, the plains of rice, then massive massifs planted to get and reach the lake to the Thousand Islands (Count 1 078 to be exact), point of rallying of tourists. The lake is artificial, this is the result of the construction of a dam in 1959.