China’s longest mainland coast rises from ancient Yue hills
Coastal Zhejiang in East China centres on Hangzhou, with Ningbo, Yiwu, and Wenzhou as other hubs. About seventy percent of the province is hills, altitudes rising south and west, and it claims the longest coastline of any mainland Chinese province, drained by the name-giving Qiantang River.
The province takes its name from the Zhe River, the old name of the Qiantang, whose mouth forms Hangzhou Bay. It is usually translated as crooked or bent river, but the character more likely preserves a sound from the local Yue language, much like the place names Yuhang and Kuaiji. Borders meet Jiangsu, Shanghai, Anhui, Jiangxi and Fujian.
Neolithic life here is deep. The Kuahuqiao culture flourished near Hangzhou between 6000 and 5000 BC, followed by Hemudu from 5500 BC and Liangzhu from 3400 BC. During the second millennium BC the area lay outside Shang influence, home to peoples known together as the Dongyue.
The kingdom of Yue appears in Spring and Autumn records in northern Zhejiang, and the historian Sima Qian traced its rulers to Yu the Great. The Song of the Yue Boatman, written down in northern China around 528 BC, shows that Yue speech was unintelligible to northerners, and the Sword of Goujian carries bird-worm script. Chu backed Yue to contain Wu, and King Goujian swallowed Wu in 473 BC, moving his capital from Mount Kuaiji near Shaoxing to present-day Suzhou.
Chu destroyed Yue in 333 BC, and Qin annexed its lands in 222 BC as a commandery named after Kuaiji. Centuries later, ports of the late Ming and Qing periods grew rich on overseas trade. Hangzhou, beside its celebrated West Lake, is now rated a Beta+ world city, and Wu Chinese varieties are the most prominent of several local languages.
Source: Zhejiang
