Qiantang River Seawall (Yuhang Section)

Qiantang River Seawall (Yuhang Section)

The Qiantang River Seawall (Yuhang Section) is a protected cultural heritage site under Zhejiang Provincial Government.

The Qiantang River Seawall (Yuhang Section) is located in Qiaosi Town and Linping Town, Yuhang District, Hangzhou City, dating back to the Qing Dynasty.

A newly discovered section of approximately 7,000 meters of well-preserved Qing-era seawall has been found on the northern bank of the Qiantang River in Yuhang. This magnificent and exquisitely engineered seawall was constructed during the mid-Qing period, running roughly from east to west. It starts at the border between Shengjia Village in Qiaosi Town and Jiubao Town in Jianggan District in the west, and extends to the boundary between Qiantang Community in Nanyuan Subdistrict and Wengjiabu in Xuxiang Town, Haining City in the east, totaling nearly 8,000 meters in length. Previously, in 2003, cultural relics authorities discovered about 1,000 meters of “Qiaosi Seawall Relics” from Wujiavillage in Qiaosi to Dongsan Village along Qumo Highway, which were listed among the first batch of municipal-level cultural relics protection sites.

The grand Qiantang River Seawall is considered the pinnacle of ancient Chinese seawall engineering technology. Its masonry techniques represent an outstanding achievement in the global history of seawall construction, and it is ranked alongside the Great Wall and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal as one of China’s three most famous ancient engineering projects. The total length of the seawall is 317 kilometers, with the northern bank section stretching 160 kilometers from Xizhuang Town in Hangzhou in the west to Jinsiniang Bridge in Pinghu City in the east.

Anciently known as the “Seawall,” the Qiantang River Seawall has been constructed since the Han Dynasty. The "Commentary on the Water Classic" records: “At the beginning of the Eastern Han, earth and stone were used to build the Qiantang Seawall.” After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, it underwent continuous construction and by the Five Dynasties period under the Wuyue Kingdom, the “stone-piled and timber-piled method” was used to build the seawall. In the Yuan Dynasty, the riverside seawall became a major thoroughfare. In the 21st year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty (1542), Huang Guangsheng, an official of the Zhejiang Provincial Surveillance Commission, pioneered the construction of the five-longitudinal-and-five-latitudinal fish-scale stone seawall in Haiyan. In the 59th year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty (1720), the seawall along the Haining and Renhe line faced threats of collapse, making it a focus of defense and repair during the Qing era. The fish-scale stone seawall was first built in Renhe County, and construction continued uninterrupted thereafter.

On January 7, 2011, it was designated as part of the sixth batch of Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units.

Further Reading:

· Sixth Batch of Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units