With more than 2300 years of history, Huzhou is the State Historical and Cultural City as designated by the State Council. It's also the only city named after the Taihu Lake. Under the jurisdiction of Huzhou are the two districts of Wuxing and Nanxun, and the three counties of Deqing, Changxing and Anji. Covering an area of 5818 square kilometers, this place is home to 2.64 million people. In recent years, city has won such titles as China Environmental Protection Model City, the National Sanitary City of China, Nationally Designated Garden City, Excellent Tourism City in China, The Most Glamorous City in China, one of “Top 100 Cities with Comprehensive Strength”, “National Forest City”, and China's Happiest City one after another, especially the first prefecture-level “Demonstration Area of Ecological Civilization in China“.
A place with convenient transportation.
Located in the center of the Yangtze River Delta, Huzhou serves as the hinterland of Shanghai, Hangzhou and Nanjing, three mega cities in this area, as well as a major node city connecting the southern and northern parts of the Yangtze River Delta and linking Eastern China and Central China. It’s only 75 kilometers, 130 kilometers and 220 kilometers away from Hangzhou, Shanghai and Nanjing respectively. Huzhou boasts the country’s stellar railways, roadways, intermediate ports within inland waterway network; 3 railways run through Huzhou,
namely Nanjing-Hangzhou High-Speed Railway, Shangqiu-Hefei-Hangzho High-Speed Railway (under construction) and Xuancheng-Hangzhou Railway; Huzhou has an easy access to 2 national and 3 provincial expressways, namely National G25 Changchun-Shenzhen (Hangzhou-Nanjing section) Expressway, National G50 Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway (Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Anhui section), Provincial S12 Shanghai-Jiaxing-Huzhou Expressway, Provincial S13 Lianshi-Hangzhou Expressway and Provincial S14 Hangzhou-Changxing Expressway; in terms of road and water transportation, National No. 104 Highway, National No. 318 Highway, and Changxing-Huzhou-Shanghai Canal, aka. “the Oriental Rhine”, all provide the convenient transportation.
A place with rich history and cultural heritage.
It has long been reputed as “Land of Fish and Rice, Land of Silk and State of Cultural Heritage”. As early as in the Song Dynasty, it’s the birthplace of the saying “Suhushu, Tianxiazu”, meaning that “if the grains in Huzhou and Suzhou grow well, they can feed the whole nation. Besides, it’s the birthplace of Huzhou writing brush, which ranks first in “Four Treasures of Study” in China; it’s the birthplace of silk culture in the world, with Qianshanyang Relics in the suburb starting the world history of breeding silkworm and making silk over 4 thousand years ago and with “Huzhou silk” winning Gold Prize in the 1st London World Expo in 1851, which marked China’s first appearance in the World Expo; it’s also the birthplace of tea culture, with “Tea Saint” Lu Yu finishing the world’s first treatise of tea named Cha Jing. Huzhou has been respecting literacy and valuing education, exemplified by a galaxy of Huzhou-born famous poets, writers, painters and calligraphers like Cao Buxing, Meng Jiao, Zhao Mengfu, Shenjiaben, Wu Changshuo, Shen Yimo. Huzhou once held great attraction to other celebrities like Wang Xizhi, Yan Zhenqin, Sushi, especially renowned painters and calligraphers. Some even initiated their own style, thus earning the city the name “Half of Chinese calligraphy and painting history started in Huzhou”. Since the Tang and Song dynasties, 19 Number One Scholars and 1500 Jinshi came from Huzhou in feudal times. Since New China was founded in 1949, a total of 38 members of Chinese Academy of Science and Chinese Academy of Engineering came from the City of Huzhou.
A place with beautiful landscape and ecology.
In the Yuan Dynasty, Poet Dai Yuanbiao wrote a poem in honor of Huzhou, reading Xing bian jiang nan qing li di, ren sheng zhi he zhu hu zhou. In his eyes, Huzhou was the most suitable and enjoyable living place. This poem is the very description of today’s Huzhou. Huzhou was where Comrade Xi Jinping put forward the important idea “Green water and mountains are equal to mounts of gold and silver” for the first time back when he paid a visit to Anji County in 2005 as the Party leader of Zhejiang Province then. Meanwhile, Huzhou is the birthplace of “China Beautiful Countryside” and the pioneer of Ecology+ philosophy. Here, the landmark Feiying Pagoda, “a pagoda within a pagoda”, overlooks the urban area; Dongwu International Twin Tower stands towering in the downtown area; the La Lune Hotel (Huzhou Sheraton) dazzles the Taihu Lake Tourism Resort; Nanxun Ancient Town, one of Top 10 Charming Towns in China, is even world-famous; Deqing County is famous for Xiazhuhu Lake Wetlands and Mogan Mountain, a summer resort; Changxing County is well-known for ancient ecological wonders including Gingko Corridor, Chinese Alligators’ Village and Changxing GSSP Geopark; Anji County, a county rich in bamboo and the first ecological county in China, is also famous for the first Hello Kitty Theme Park in China.
A place with quick development and social harmony.
In recent years, the economy in Huzhou has witnessed an everlasting, rapid and coordinated growth. In 2014, Huzhou's GDP totaled 195.6 billion yuan, a YoY increase of 8.4%. Per capita GDP stood at 74,332 yuan (12101 US dollars); the total fiscal revenue reached 29.57 billion yuan, the per capita disposable income of urban residents and the per capita net income of rural residents reached 38,959 yuan and 22,404 yuan respectively. As a place with a narrow urban-rural gap, Huzhou is characterized by good social order and stability, with the public safety and satisfaction index taking the lead in Zhejiang Province. Currently, by putting into practice President Xi Jinping’s idea “Green water and mountains are equal to mounts of gold and silver” and adopting provincial “Double Eight Strategies” as the blueprint and pushing forward transformation and upgrading, city has been pressing ahead the construction of modern and ecological lakeside metropolis.