Grand Canal

A canal is a river that people dig.

The Grand Canal in China is very, very long. It joins big rivers together, so boats can travel a long way.

The Grand Canal is a vast system of waterways dug by people across the plains of eastern China. It runs from Beijing, the capital, in the north to Zhejiang province in the south, passing through eight of today's provinces.

By the 13th century it had more than 2,000 kilometers of man-made waterways, linking five of China's main river basins, including the Yellow River and the Yangtze. UNESCO calls it the longest and oldest canal in the world.

UNESCO describes the Grand Canal as a vast inland waterway system across the north-eastern and central eastern plains, through eight present-day provinces, from Beijing to Zhejiang. ICOMOS adds that it ends at the port of Ningbo on the East China Sea and links five river basins from north to south: the Hai, the Yellow River, the Huai, the Yangtze and the Qiantang, flowing from the temperate north, with low rainfall, to the hot, wet subtropical south, which suits rice-growing.

In the 13th century the network had more than 2,000 km of artificial waterways; ICOMOS gives about 3,000 km including branches. The serial World Heritage property, inscribed in 2014, has 31 component properties with a little over 1,000 km of waterways, which UNESCO counts as 85 individual elements.

Big towns grew up along the canal.

Some old parts are now just for visitors. Other parts still carry big boats full of goods.

Along the canal are large old granaries, where grain was stored, and towns that grew up along it, such as Suzhou, Wuxi and Yangzhou, with bridges, gates and canal-side streets.

The canal is still a living waterway. ICOMOS reports that some sections carry active commercial traffic, some city sections carry only visitors' boats, and others are used for irrigation or to take overflow water in floods.

UNESCO's criterion (iii) highlights the Caoyun system, an imperial monopoly on transporting and storing grain, salt and iron with its own taxation, which linked the peasant economy, the court and the food supply until it disappeared in the 20th century. Urban components such as Suzhou, Wuxi, Yangzhou and Nanxun show the canal towns that grew with it.

ICOMOS describes a waterway still in use: some reaches carry active commercial traffic, mainly urban sections carry only tourist boats, and others serve as flood overflows or for irrigation. It reports phenomenal traffic growth since the early 2000s in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and machine-age widening and re-excavation; UNESCO adds that some sections presented today have clearly been recently rebuilt.

In the photo, a long, flat boat moves along the canal.

Trees and tall buildings line the far bank. A stone railing is in front.

In the photo, a long, low cargo boat with a cabin at each end travels along the canal. Behind it are a stone railing along the bank, trees, apartment buildings and a building raised on pillars by the bank. In the front corner is part of a stone railing on this side.

UNESCO says the Grand Canal is still a major means of transport inside China today, and calls it a powerful force that helped unite the country over the centuries.

The photo shows a long, low-sided cargo boat with cabins at the front and back on a wide stretch of canal, a balustraded embankment on the far side backed by trees and apartment blocks, and a structure raised on pillars by the bank; the photo's record does not say which city it is in.

UNESCO calls the canal still a major means of internal communication and, under criterion (vi), a powerful factor of economic and political unification and cultural interchange since the 7th century. Its statement notes that some sections have clearly been rebuilt recently, raises doubts about the landscapes of some urban and suburban sections, and asks for wider buffer zones along the banks and more effort in landscape conservation.