Qiantang District 钱塘区

Setting and landscape

Most of the district's land was won from the river. Xiasha (下沙) in the west and Dajiangdong (大江东) in the east, known in the past as Nansha (南沙), were both sandy ground: tidal flats built up from Qiantang River sediment and enclosed over generations by local people against the Qiantang tide. The big Xiasha reclamation ran from the early 1950s to 1980 and produced about 80 percent of Xiasha's present land. The Dajiangdong reclamation began in 1949 and had enclosed 518,200 mu by the 1990s.

Hangzhou News counts 180 square kilometres of wetland in the district, including coastal flats, rivers, lakes and fish ponds, and reports that the Jianghai wetland (江海湿地) has recorded more than 140 bird species, among them the tundra swan, black-faced spoonbill and reed parrotbill. The same report places Hangzhou's largest wetland, the Linjiang Jianghai Wetland (临江江海湿地), and the longest riverside stretch of the Zhijiang Greenway (之江绿道) in Qiantang, and reported in 2023 that Hangzhou plans to build a Greater Bay wetland park (大湾区湿地公园) in the district, in the estuary of the Qiantang River.

What to see

The Xiasha Higher Education Park (下沙高教园区), set up by the provincial government in 2000, holds 14 universities, among them Hangzhou Dianzi University (杭州电子科技大学), Zhejiang Sci-Tech University (浙江理工大学) and the Communication University of Zhejiang (浙江传媒学院). The reclamation story is told at the reclamation culture exhibition hall in Xinwei Village (新围村), which the Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Heritage Administration recognised as a rural museum in 2023.

Highlights

• Linjiang Jianghai Wetland 临江江海湿地: Named by Hangzhou News as Hangzhou's largest wetland, on the Qiantang estuary; more than 140 bird species recorded in the Jianghai wetland.
• Xiasha Higher Education Park 下沙高教园区: Set up in 2000; 14 universities.
• Xinwei Village reclamation culture exhibition hall 新围村围垦文化展陈馆: Rural museum on the district's land reclamation, recognised in 2023.