Nomination : West Lake Cultural Lanscape of Hangzhou

Category : Cultural Landscape

Location : Hangzhou, China

Date of Inscription : 2011

Criteria : (ii) (iii) (vi) 

West Lake is surrounded on three sides by ‘cloud-capped hills’ and on the fourth by the city of Hangzhou. Its beauty has been celebrated by writers and artists since the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907). In order to make it more beautiful, its islands, causeways and the lower slopes of its hills have been ‘improved’ by the addition of numerous temples, pagodas, pavilions, gardens and ornamental trees which merged with farmed landscape. The main artificial elements of the Lake, two causeways and tree islands, were created from repeated dredging between the 9^th and 12^th centuries. Since the Southern Song Dynasty (13^th century) ten poetically names scenic places have been identified as embodying idealized, classic landscapes-that manifest the perfect fusion between man and nature. West Lake is an outstanding example of a cultural landscape that display with great clarity the ideals of Chinese landscape aesthetics, as expounded by writers and scholars in Tang and Song Dynasties. The landscape of West Lake had a profound impact on the design of gardens not only in China but further afield, where lakes and causeways imitated the harmony and beauty of West Lake. The key components of West Lake still allow it to inspire people to ‘project feelings onto the landscape’. The visual parameters of this vast landscape garden are clearly defined, rising to the ridges of the surrounding hills as viewed from Hangzhou.

Remarks from the World Heritage Committee: The West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou, comprising the West Lake and the hills surrounding its three sides, has inspired famous poets, scholars and artists since the 9^th century. It comprises numerous temples, pagodas, pavilions gardens and ornamental trees, as well as causeways and artificial islands. These additions have been made to improve the landscape west of the city of Hangzhou to the south of Yangtze River. The West Lake has influenced garden design in the rest of China as well as Japan and Korea over the centuries and bears an exceptional testimony to the cultural tradition of improving landscapes to create a series of vistas reflecting an idealized fusion between humans and nature.