Hangzhou City Walls

The first defensive walls in the Hangzhou area can be traced back 5000 years to the Neolithic jade-carving . The Liangzhu people built earthen walls that served two purposes, to protect their settlements from invaders and to serve as to prevent flooding. Over the subsequent course of Chinese history, Hangzhou changed hands many times, and every ruler and every dynasty had its own contributions and modifications to the Hangzhou City Walls. While little remains of them today, the fact that Hangzhou was once a walled city is still evidenced by certain place names around town, especially the names of its ten gatehouses.

Sui Period

Hanghzou's first city walls were built during the in the 11th year of , corresponding to 591 AD. It's perimeter is recorded as being 36 and 90 paces long. It's eastern boundary would have been about where Zhonghe Road is today. The western wall ran along the eastern bank of , the West Lake. To the south the wall pressed up against Fenghuang Mountain and its northern limit was the Qiantang Gate , roughly where today's No. 6 Park is. Certain parts of modern day Hangzhou's downtown area would not have been included inside the Sui city walls, such as Mt. Wu being excluded by an indent in the wall and Wulin Road being too far north.