Zhejiang · Zhejiang
Zhejiang is the Yangtze Delta's mountainous edge — West Lake, Wuzhen and Xitang, Putuo Mountain and Yandangshan, all in one small, very rich province.
The short version
The place itself
Zhejiang is a small province with an outsized reputation. It takes up the southern flank of the Yangtze Delta, wedged between the East China Sea on one side and Fujian, Jiangxi, Anhui, Shanghai and Jiangsu on the others, and it manages to be several quite different countries at once: the lake city of Hangzhou that Marco Polo and the Song court called paradise, the canal towns of Wuzhen and Xitang where the water still runs down the middle of the street, the tea terraces above the West Lake hills, the Buddhist island of Putuo Mountain, and the rhyolite peaks of Yandangshan away down on the Wenzhou coast.
The cliché is that Zhejiang is a soft province — willow, water, silk, a civilised feminine sort of place. The truth is less tidy. The Qiantang, its largest river, empties into the sea in a tidal bore that has drawn crowds since the Han dynasty, and the same coast that produces the bore also produces typhoons. Inland the classic formula is seven parts mountain, one part water, two parts farmland, and the high point, Huangmaojian in Longquan, reaches 1,929 m. Hangzhou is the polished, wealthy, rather languid capital; two hours south, Wenzhou is a town of traders famous across China for starting businesses nobody else would touch.
What holds the province together is money and movement. Zhejiang has been rich since the Southern Song moved its capital to Hangzhou, and the wealth still shows in the food, the gardens and the sheer density of well-kept old towns. It shows just as much in the transport: Xiaoshan airport with its three terminals, high-speed lines running down the coast through Ningbo, Taizhou and Wenzhou, and coach services that reach villages. In practice that means you can circle the province properly — a lake, a canal town, a Buddhist island and a dead volcano inside one nine-day trip.
One caution worth building the trip around: the calendar matters more here than in most provinces. Summer is genuinely punishing, winter is damp and cold, and March to April is the plum-rain season when an umbrella belongs in your bag every single day. Spring and autumn are when the province is at its best, and Golden Week is when it is at its worst — arrive then and the Su Causeway delivers crowds rather than romance.
Pins are plotted from real latitude and longitude on a 5° graticule. This is a schematic orientation diagram, not a political map — no boundaries are drawn.
The capital and the reason most people book the ticket. The West Lake sits in the middle of the city, is entirely free, and every one of its old and new 'ten scenes' comes with a thousand years of poetry attached. Add Lingyin Temple in the hills, the tea villages at Longjing and Meijiawu, and the wetland park at Xixi, made famous by the film 'If You Are The One'.
Two of the six great canal towns of the Yangtze Delta, both inside Jiaxing. Wuzhen is the more finished production, with 6,000 years of history and a proper theatre festival; Xitang is the shabbier, quieter one, famous for its 1,300 m of covered riverside walkways and the smell of stinky tofu on every lane.
Out east, 1,390 islands scattered over 22,000 sq km of sea. Putuo is one of China's four great Buddhist mountains and the court of Guanyin; Shenjiamen is the country's largest natural fishing harbour; and the far isles of Dongji and Shengsi have the only genuinely blue water on the whole coastline.
The water town of scholars — Wang Xizhi's Orchid Pavilion, where the calligraphers floied wine cups down a stream, and the Lu Xun childhood that every Chinese schoolchild has read about. The food is salty rather than sweet, and the yellow wine is the drink the whole city is built around.
Asia's largest film studio, built since 1996 in the Dongyang countryside: a Qin palace, a 1:1 Forbidden City, a 19th-century Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Thousands of shoots run year-round, which is the real entertainment — you are as likely to see a costumed crew eating lunch as a finished scene.
A 120-million-year-old rhyolite volcano on the Wenzhou coast, now a world geopark with more than 500 sights in eight scenic areas. The three classics are Lingfeng, Lingyan and the Grand Dragon Waterfall — and the Lingfeng night view is worth a second ticket.
Hangzhou is the hinge, and it is well connected: Xiaoshan International Airport sits about an hour from the centre with three terminals and an airport bus at ¥20 to the city, and the rail network covers both directions of the delta. From outside the province most people fly or take high-speed rail; within it, the coastal high-speed line is the spine, running Hangzhou–Ningbo–Taizhou–Wenzhou with a stop at Yandangshan that puts you in the scenic area in about ten minutes. Ordinary trains and long-distance coaches fill the gaps: Hangzhou's four main coach stations send buses to every corner of the province, Ningbo's five stations cover the northeast, and Wenzhou's south station runs tourist coaches up to Yandangshan for ¥27.
Between cities, rail is quicker and coaches are cheaper and more frequent; within scenic areas, expect a two-tier system. In peak season green minibuses shuttle between the main sights — at Yandangshan, the 'two Lings and one Dragon' circuit costs as little as ¥6.50 — but out of season there are too few passengers to cover the tunnel tolls and parking, so the same buses turn into chartered taxis at ¥150–200 a day. The islands are the exception: Zhoushan has no railway at all, so everything beyond the bridged main island is reached by ferry, and the timetables move with the weather.
| Month | Weather | Crowds | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 12°C / 4°C · cool, damp | Quiet | Good |
| February | 14°C / 6°C · cool, damp | Very busy | Good |
| March | 18°C / 10°C · clear and mild | Moderate | Best |
| April | 24°C / 16°C · clear and mild | Moderate | Best |
| May | 28°C / 21°C · cool, damp | Busy | OK |
| June | 32°C / 25°C · very hot, humid | Moderate | OK |
| July | 35°C / 28°C · cool, damp | Busy | Avoid |
| August | 34°C / 27°C · cool, damp | Busy | Avoid |
| September | 29°C / 23°C · very hot, humid | Moderate | OK |
| October | 24°C / 17°C · clear and mild | Very busy | Best |
| November | 18°C / 11°C · clear and mild | Quiet | Best |
| December | 13°C / 6°C · cool, damp | Quiet | Good |
Nine days is the version that earns the province: three in Hangzhou (including a half-day at Xixi and a morning in the tea villages), half a day each in Wuzhen and Xitang, a full day in Shaoxing, a day in Ningbo and two out on the Zhoushan islands. Six days gives you the short version — Hangzhou, one canal town, Hengdian and Yandangshan — and four days is really only Hangzhou, Ningbo and one extra. Each additional day past nine stops buying you more cities and starts buying you the food, the tea and the walking, which is where Zhejiang actually lives.
Plan these days properly
Hangzhou
Zhejiang · 2 tours
Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province, is built around West Lake — willow banks, causeways and pagodas that poets have been writing about for 1,2
Wuzhen
Zhejiang · 4 tours
Wuzhen is a 1,300-year-old canal town in Tongxiang, Zhejiang, and the most finished water town in the Yangtze delta — 7,000 years of settlement histor
Xitang
Zhejiang · 4 tours
Xitang is a canal town in Jiashan, Zhejiang, and the most lived-in of the big water towns — nine rivers meeting in the town, 122 stone lanes and the c
Ningbo
Zhejiang · 4 tours
Ningbo is a 7,000-year-old harbour city on China's east coast and the mainland gateway to Mount Putuo, and 2 days covers the headline sights — Tianyi
Mount Putuo
Zhejiang · 4 tours
Mount Putuo is a small sacred island in the Zhoushan archipelago off Zhejiang and one of China's four great Buddhist mountains, the home of Guanyin —
Zhoushan
Zhejiang · 4 tours
Zhoushan is China's archipelago city in Zhejiang, made of 1,390 islands, and 3 to 4 days covers the Buddhist island of Putuo Mountain, the sand and sc
Hengdian
Zhejiang · 4 tours
Hengdian is the studio town of Dongyang in Zhejiang and the largest film backlot in Asia — nicknamed China's Hollywood — where 2 days covers the Qin P
Yandang Mountain
Zhejiang · 4 tours
Yandang Mountain is a 120-million-year-old rhyolite volcano in Yueqing, Zhejiang, a 5A-rated world geopark with more than 500 sights across eight scen
Nine days is the honest first trip: three in Hangzhou, half a day each in Wuzhen and Xitang, one in Shaoxing, one in Ningbo and two out on the Zhoushan islands. Six days gets you Hangzhou, one canal town, Hengdian and Yandangshan; four days is really only Hangzhou, Ningbo and one extra stop.
Spring and autumn, when the humidity and the temperature are both moderate — the province says so itself. Summer is scorching and winter is damp and penetratingly cold, so avoid both if you can. March and April bring the plum rain: carry an umbrella every day, because the sky will surprise you.
Yes, by Chinese standards — prices here are comparable to Beijing's and Shanghai's, and sometimes higher. The great exception is the West Lake, which is completely free and open to everyone, so Hangzhou can still be done cheaply. Accommodation runs from about ¥60 a bed to several hundred a night, so the real variable is you.
High-speed rail is the backbone: the coastal line links Hangzhou, Ningbo, Taizhou and Wenzhou, and most intercity hops take one to three hours. Coaches are cheaper, more frequent and reach smaller towns. Within scenic areas use the sightseeing buses in season and charter a car in the off-season; for the islands, ferries are the only option.
Yes. Crossing the Su Causeway during Golden Week gives you nothing but irritation and no romance at all. The same applies to the big incense days on Putuo Mountain and the opening weeks of the sand sculpture festival — book well ahead or shift your dates by a fortnight.
Hangzhou's West Lake for the poetry and the free price tag, and one of the two canal towns for the water architecture — Wuzhen if you want it finished and theatrical, Xitang if you want it live-in and shabby. After that the province splits by taste: incense on Putuo Mountain, film sets at Hengdian, or the volcanic peaks of Yandangshan.
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