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Qiandaohu, the Lake of a Thousand Islands — editorial illustration
千岛湖

Qiandaohu

the Lake of a Thousand Islands

Editorial illustration · not a site photograph
  • 2 dayslake cruise, islands and old villages
  • Autumnclearest viewing from Meifeng deck
  • By railabout an hour from Hangzhou on the Huangshan line
  • Tasteorganic bighead carp fish head

Qiandaohu — Thousand Island Lake — is not an ancient landscape but a very young one: a vast reservoir raised in 1959 behind the Xin'an River dam, which flooded two county towns and left more than a thousand forested peaks standing out of the water as islands. Its water is so clean that it bottles a national brand of mineral water straight from the lake, its fish farms are famously organic, and its slow blue mornings have made it the weekend lake of Hangzhou.

Qiandaohu, the Lake of a Thousand Islands editorial travel scene
Qiandaohu, the Lake of a Thousand Islands · editorial illustration

The full handbook is part of the paid series

You have read the free preview — the introduction and the route map. The complete handbook adds the day-by-day plan, tickets and transport, culture and etiquette, food, useful Chinese, and the dated source list.

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