# The Grand Canal in Hangzhou: Gongchen Bridge and the Southern End

> The Grand Canal in Hangzhou: how the world's longest canal reached the city in 610, Gongchen Bridge of 1631, and the listed warehouses along its banks.

Canonical: https://hangzhoumemory.org/grand-canal-hangzhou
Updated: 2026-11-01

The Grand Canal in Hangzhou is the southern end of the world's longest artificial waterway, which runs nearly 1,800 km from Beijing. Its southern section reached the city in 610; Gongchen Bridge marks its end, and the canal became a World Heritage Site in 2014.

## How the canal reached Hangzhou

Waterways across the Taihu plain are older than the empire: the state of Wu dug canals around its capital at Suzhou in the first millennium BC, and the Qin built a water route on to Qiantang, as Hangzhou was then called. The decisive work came in the winter of 610, when the Sui emperor ordered the **Jiangnan Canal** cut and widened from Jingkou, today's Zhenjiang on the Yangtze, to Hangzhou — according to the chronicles more than 800 *li* long and over ten *zhang* wide, so that dragon boats could pass, with relay palaces along the way.

Today the Jiangnan Canal runs about 330 km from Zhenjiang through Changzhou, Wuxi, Suzhou and Jiaxing to Hangzhou; south of Pingwang it splits into three routes, one of them a direct cut to Hangzhou dug at the end of the Yuan dynasty. Local people long called it the *guantang*, the "official canal". The whole Grand Canal nominally runs about 1,794 km between Beijing and Hangzhou, although only the stretch from Hangzhou north to Liangshan in Shandong is still navigable.

At Hangzhou the Grand Canal met the Qiantang River and, across it, the **Eastern Zhejiang Canal** to Shaoxing and Ningbo, whose western end, the Xixing Canal, was dug around 300. In 2014 the Grand Canal, with the Eastern Zhejiang Canal as part of it, was inscribed as a World Heritage Site.

## Gongchen Bridge

**Gongchen Bridge** in Gongshu district is the largest surviving stone arch bridge in urban Hangzhou and the landmark of the canal's southern end. It was first built in 1631, late in the Ming dynasty, and rebuilt in 1885. Its three arches on thin piers carry a deck 92.1 m long and 5.9 m wide, with the central arch 9.2 m high; plain stone balustrades with lotus-topped posts line both sides. *Chen* means the imperial palace, and the name — "arching towards the palace" — salutes the emperors who came south along the canal.

The bridge was named a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level in 2013. Cargo barges and tour boats still pass under it; the nearest metro station is Gongchen Bridge East.

## Treaty port and mill district

When Hangzhou opened to foreign trade in 1896 under the treaty that ended the First Sino-Japanese War, its trading area and a Japanese concession were laid out by Gongchen Bridge. The same years brought a large cotton mill and a silk-reeling factory to the northern suburbs, and from the late 1950s Gongchen Bridge became one of the city's light-industry and textile districts.

That working past is why several of Hangzhou's [declared historic buildings](/shops-and-factories) by the canal are warehouses: [National Warehouse of Silk](/web/guest/lsjz-content_display/-/asset_publisher/0qkI/content/古城佳话-历史建筑-国家厂丝储备仓库), [Architecture of Qiaoxi Warehouse of Hangzhou Specialties Co, Ltd](/web/guest/lsjz-content_display/-/asset_publisher/0qkI/content/杭州市土特产有限公司桥西仓库建筑-2), [Architectural complex of Xiaohe Oil Warehouse of Hangzhou Petroleum Company, Zhejiang](/web/guest/lsjz-content_display/-/asset_publisher/0qkI/content/浙江杭州石油公司小河油库建筑群-6).

## Xixing: where cargo crossed the river

Across the Qiantang, Xixing in today's Binjiang district sits at the western end of the Eastern Zhejiang Canal, where goods and travellers crossed between the river and the canal. From the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty (1573–1620), transfer firms called *guotanghang* grew up there to handle the crossing. The old streets there keep a row of late-Qing buildings on the historic buildings list, among them [Building at 112, Guanhe Road](/web/guest/lsjz-content_display/-/asset_publisher/0qkI/content/官河路112号建筑), [Buildings at 102,103, and 104, Guanhe Road](/web/guest/lsjz-content_display/-/asset_publisher/0qkI/content/官河路102、103、104号建筑), [Buildings at 105, 106 and 107, Guanhe Road](/web/guest/lsjz-content_display/-/asset_publisher/0qkI/content/古城佳话-历史建筑-官河路105、106、107号建筑) on Guanhe Road — the "official river" road.

## Frequently asked questions

### Where does the Grand Canal end in Hangzhou?

At Gongchen Bridge in Gongshu district, the traditional marker of the canal's southern end. Beyond the city it connects to the Qiantang River and the Eastern Zhejiang Canal.

### How old is Gongchen Bridge?

It was first built in 1631 and rebuilt in 1885. It is 92.1 m long with three stone arches.

### When did the Grand Canal reach Hangzhou?

The Jiangnan Canal from the Yangtze to Hangzhou was ordered in 610 under the Sui dynasty, linking the city to the canal network that ran north to the capital.