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Roots Earth in Hangzhou: audio stories about 46 places

Roots Earth has audio stories about 46 places in Hangzhou, China, in Asia. The Hangzhou stories are in all seven Roots Earth languages: English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The app needs no account: open Hangzhou, pick a place on the city's map of places and play. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection. The stories are written by local people.

The 46 places are listed below in the order the app shows them, and again further down with their coordinates. The lists were taken from the Roots Earth catalogue on 15 September 2026.

Published 16 September 2026. Markdown: hangzhou.md

The 46 places in Hangzhou with audio stories

In the order the app shows them.

  1. West Lake
  2. Leifeng Pagoda
  3. Lingyin Temple
  4. Liuhe Pagoda (Six Harmonies Pagoda)
  5. Baochu Pagoda
  6. Yue Fei Temple and Tomb
  7. Feilai Feng Grottoes
  8. Jingci Temple
  9. Su Causeway
  10. Bai Causeway
  11. Grand Canal (Hangzhou)
  12. Zhejiang Provincial Museum
  13. China National Silk Museum
  14. China National Tea Museum
  15. Liangzhu Museum
  16. China Academy of Art
  17. Xiling Seal Art Society
  18. Three Pools Mirroring the Moon
  19. Hupao (Running Tiger) Spring
  20. Longjing Tea Plantations
  21. Qiantang River
  22. Qiantang River Bridge
  23. Gongchen Bridge
  24. Hangzhou Confucian Temple
  25. Liangzhu Archaeological Site
  26. Zhejiang Art Museum
  27. Xixi National Wetland Park
  28. Hangzhou Zoo
  29. Hangzhou Botanical Garden
  30. Guo's Villa (Quyuan Garden)
  31. Tomb of Su Xiaoxiao
  32. Qinghefang Ancient Street
  33. Wushan (Wu Hill)
  34. Huqingyutang Chinese Medicine Museum
  35. Former Residence of Hu Xueyan
  36. Wulin Square
  37. Hangzhou Library
  38. Zhejiang University
  39. Qiaoxi Historic Block
  40. Manjuelong (Osmanthus) Village
  41. Meijiawu Tea Village
  42. Hangzhou East Railway Station
  43. Tomb of Lin Bu (Gushan)
  44. Zhejiang University of Technology
  45. Zhejiang University Yuquan Campus
  46. Hangzhou Railway Station (City Station)

Is there an audio guide for West Lake?

Yes. West Lake has its audio stories in the Roots Earth app: a short introduction and a deeper story, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian.

It is place 1 of the 46 Hangzhou places in the app, at 30.24694, 120.14417. Every one of the other 45 places in the list above has the same two stories.

Roots Earth is not a guided tour: you choose the place on the city's map of places and play its story yourself.

How to use Roots Earth in Hangzhou

Open Roots Earth and choose Hangzhou. The city has its own map of places with all 46 of them on it. Tap the place you are standing in front of, or any other, and play its short introduction or its deeper story. You decide what to listen to and in which order.

You can listen in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian, and there is no account. Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection.

In full

All 46 places in Hangzhou, in the app's order, with their coordinates.

All 46 places in Hangzhou, with coordinates

Every place below has a short introduction and a deeper story in the Roots Earth app, in English, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian. The names, the coordinates (latitude, longitude) and the one line descriptions are the app's own catalogue values of 15 September 2026; a place without a line here has none that this page can print.

1. West Lake

Coordinates
30.24694, 120.14417
In one line
West Lake is a freshwater lake in Hangzhou, shaped by centuries of dredging across the Tang and Song eras. Famous for its causeways, pagodas, and "Ten Scenes," it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2011.

2. Leifeng Pagoda

Coordinates
30.23389, 120.145
In one line
Leifeng Pagoda rises on Sunset Hill above West Lake. First built in 975 by a Wuyue king, it collapsed in 1924 and was rebuilt in 2002 over the original ruins. It is famous from the Legend of the White Snake.

3. Lingyin Temple

Coordinates
30.24278, 120.09667
In one line
Lingyin Temple is one of China's oldest and wealthiest Buddhist monasteries, founded in the fourth century beside the carved cliffs of Feilai Feng. A great Chan temple, it is known for its Hall of the Heavenly Kings and a towering camphor-wood Buddha.

4. Liuhe Pagoda (Six Harmonies Pagoda)

Coordinates
30.19825, 120.12658
In one line
Liuhe Pagoda, the Six Harmonies Pagoda, stands on Yuelun Hill above the Qiantang River.

5. Baochu Pagoda

Coordinates
30.26333, 120.14361
In one line
Baochu Pagoda is a slender brick-and-stone tower on Precious Stone Hill above West Lake's northern shore. First raised in the Wuyue era around 963 and last rebuilt in 1933, its needle-like form balances Leifeng Pagoda across the water.

6. Yue Fei Temple and Tomb

Coordinates
30.2375, 120.14083
In one line
Yue Fei Temple and Tomb, founded in 1221 beside West Lake, honors the Song general Yue Fei, executed in 1142 on false charges. A lasting symbol of patriotism, it holds his tomb and iron statues of his betrayers kneeling in disgrace.

7. Feilai Feng Grottoes

Coordinates
30.24056, 120.1
In one line
Feilai Feng is a limestone peak beside Lingyin Temple, its cliffs and caves carved with hundreds of Buddhist figures from the tenth to fourteenth centuries. The most famous is a large laughing Maitreya, encircled by arhats along the wooded path.

8. Jingci Temple

Coordinates
30.2295, 120.149
In one line
Founded in 954 below Nanping Hill on West Lake's southern shore, Jingci is a great Chan Buddhist monastery. Its evening bell inspired one of the famous Ten Scenes of West Lake, ringing across the water at dusk.

9. Su Causeway

Coordinates
30.24611, 120.13556
In one line
Built around 1089 by the poet-governor Su Shi from silt dredged out of West Lake, this tree-lined dyke runs the lake's western length. Six arched bridges cross it, and willows and peach trees shade a walk loved for centuries.

10. Bai Causeway

Coordinates
30.25667, 120.14694
In one line
A short lakeside dyke linking the shore to Gushan Island, named for the Tang poet Bai Juyi.

11. Grand Canal (Hangzhou)

Coordinates
30.26139, 120.22389
In one line
Hangzhou marks the southern end of the Grand Canal, the longest and oldest artificial waterway on Earth. Spanning some 1,776 kilometers to Beijing, with sections over 2,500 years old, it joins the lake city to the Qiantang River at the historic Gongchen Bridge.

12. Zhejiang Provincial Museum

Coordinates
30.25347, 120.13861
In one line
Founded in 1929 on West Lake's Gushan Island, this provincial museum holds over 100,000 artifacts, among them Liangzhu jades and a celebrated Tang-era zither. Its treasures trace the deep history of the Zhejiang region across multiple sites.

13. China National Silk Museum

Coordinates
30.225, 120.1472
In one line
Opened in 1992 near West Lake, this is the largest silk museum in the world. Across some 50,000 square meters it traces Chinese sericulture and Silk Road textiles, displaying ancient fabrics, working looms, and weaving demonstrations.

14. China National Tea Museum

Coordinates
30.2347, 120.1156
In one line
Opened in 1991 among the Longjing tea terraces west of West Lake, this is China's only national museum devoted to tea. Set in gardens and tasting rooms, it celebrates tea culture in the homeland of Longjing green tea.

15. Liangzhu Museum

Coordinates
30.3794, 120.0233
In one line
A travertine-clad museum on Hangzhou's northwestern edge, ringed by water, telling the story of the Liangzhu culture that flourished around the Yangtze some 5,000 years ago through its astonishing carved jades.

16. China Academy of Art

Coordinates
30.24333, 120.15889
In one line
Founded in 1928 as China's first national art academy, this Hangzhou institution helped shape modern Chinese art. Its Xiangshan campus, designed by Pritzker Prize architect Wang Shu, weaves tile, timber, and earth into the hills.

17. Xiling Seal Art Society

Coordinates
30.25306, 120.13528
In one line
Founded in 1904 on Gushan Island by West Lake, this is China's foremost society for seal engraving and stone calligraphy. Its hillside studios and stelae preserve an art whose roots reach back through the Ming and Qing dynasties.

18. Three Pools Mirroring the Moon

Coordinates
30.23944, 120.14306
In one line
Three small stone pagodas rise from the water around an islet in West Lake, their origin linked to the poet-governor Su Shi. Lit at the Mid-Autumn Festival, the scene is one of the lake's Ten Scenes and appears on Chinese currency.

19. Hupao (Running Tiger) Spring

Coordinates
30.209, 120.13
In one line
A spring in southwestern Hangzhou whose water, seeping from quartzite, has been prized for centuries as among China's finest, especially for brewing Longjing tea. Legend tells of tigers that pawed the ground to open it for a hermit.

20. Longjing Tea Plantations

Coordinates
30.22208, 120.1047
In one line
Terraced hills southwest of Hangzhou where Longjing, or Dragon Well, green tea is grown. Named for an old well, the area holds villages, tea houses, and a temple, and its leaf was granted imperial tribute status under the Kangxi Emperor.

21. Qiantang River

Coordinates
30.3, 120.2
In one line
A 459-kilometer river flowing through Zhejiang past Hangzhou into Hangzhou Bay, famous for a tidal bore that can rise up to 9 meters. Its name recalls the dikes built by Qian Liu, founder of the Wuyue Kingdom, against that very tide.

22. Qiantang River Bridge

Coordinates
30.19528, 120.13444
In one line
The Qiantang River Bridge is a double-deck road and rail crossing opened in 1937, the first major modern bridge designed and built by Chinese engineers, led by Mao Yisheng, and a landmark of national pride.

23. Gongchen Bridge

Coordinates
30.32047, 120.13472
In one line
Gongchen Bridge is a high three-arched stone bridge of 1631 spanning the Grand Canal in Hangzhou. The largest old bridge on the canal here, it marks the waterway's southern reach and anchors the Qiaoxi historic district.

24. Hangzhou Confucian Temple

Coordinates
30.24611, 120.16639
In one line
The Hangzhou Confucian Temple, moved to its present site in 1131 as the Lin'an prefectural school, now serves as the Hangzhou Forest of Steles, where the historic Dacheng Hall stands among hundreds of engraved stone tablets.

25. Liangzhu Archaeological Site

Coordinates
30.39306, 119.99861
In one line
The Liangzhu Archaeological Site preserves a 5,000-year-old walled city near Hangzhou, center of a jade-carving civilization with vast earthworks and dams. Discovered in 1936, it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.

26. Zhejiang Art Museum

Coordinates
30.23889, 120.14722
In one line
The Zhejiang Art Museum, opened in August 2009 beside West Lake near Wansong Hill, is the province's largest public art museum. Its angular roof echoes the surrounding hills, and it holds roughly 20,000 works of modern art.

27. Xixi National Wetland Park

Coordinates
30.27056, 120.0625
In one line
Xixi National Wetland Park, opened in 2005 as China's first national wetland park, spreads across about 1,150 hectares of waterways and ponds west of Hangzhou. Old persimmon groves, fishing villages, and rich birdlife fill its watery landscape.

28. Hangzhou Zoo

Coordinates
30.2137, 120.1337
In one line
Hangzhou Zoo, opened in 1958 in the leafy hills near West Lake, is a much-loved family park home to more than a thousand animals. After a 2020 merger it now covers a large green area in the Hupao district.

29. Hangzhou Botanical Garden

Coordinates
30.25, 120.12
In one line
Hangzhou Botanical Garden opened in 1956 on roughly 1 square kilometre of hillside near West Lake. A research base for Zhejiang University, it gathers themed plant collections, greenhouses, and quiet wooded paths shaded by camellias and bamboo.

30. Guo's Villa (Quyuan Garden)

Coordinates
30.25278, 120.13056
In one line
Built in 1907 by silk merchant Song Duanfu, Guo's Villa sits on West Lake's western shore. Hangzhou's best-preserved private Qing garden pairs lakeside pavilions with a mirror-still pond, rockeries, and corridors, earning it the nickname "Number One Garden of the West Lake."

31. Tomb of Su Xiaoxiao

Coordinates
30.255, 120.14361
In one line
Beside Xiling Bridge rests the tomb of Su Xiaoxiao, a celebrated courtesan and poet who lived around 479 to 501. Sheltered by the Mucai Pavilion and rebuilt in 2004, the small monument has inspired poets for over fifteen centuries.

32. Qinghefang Ancient Street

Coordinates
30.24, 120.16722
In one line
Qinghefang Ancient Street runs about 460 metres along the north foot of Wushan. Hangzhou's old commercial heart since the Southern Song, its restored Ming and Qing shopfronts still house century-old businesses selling fans, scissors, medicine, snacks, and silk.

33. Wushan (Wu Hill)

Coordinates
30.24139, 120.16444
In one line
Wushan rises southeast of West Lake, between the lake and the Qiantang River.

34. Huqingyutang Chinese Medicine Museum

Coordinates
30.23972, 120.16778
In one line
Founded by merchant Hu Xueyan in 1874 near Wushan, Huqingyutang is a grand wooden pharmacy in Jiangnan style. Since 1991 it has housed a Chinese medicine museum, yet it still sells and dispenses traditional remedies as a working drugstore.

35. Former Residence of Hu Xueyan

Coordinates
30.23806, 120.17028
In one line
Built between 1872 and 1875 for merchant Hu Xueyan, this lavish Hangzhou mansion spans about 5,815 square metres of buildings. Its Zhiyuan garden hides China's largest artificial karst grotto. Restored, it reopened to the public in 2001.

36. Wulin Square

Coordinates
30.27333, 120.15861
In one line
Wulin Square is Hangzhou's busy civic and commercial heart, ringed by department stores, the Hangzhou Theatre, and towers. Its plum-blossom musical fountain and dancing-maiden sculpture, completed in 1984, remain beloved local landmarks.

37. Hangzhou Library

Coordinates
30.2481, 120.2036
In one line
Founded in 1958, Hangzhou Library is a major public library famous for welcoming everyone, including the homeless. Its director's defense of open access made it a national symbol of equal reading rights, holding more than 2. 8 million items.

38. Zhejiang University

Coordinates
30.26361, 120.12083
In one line
Zhejiang University traces to the Qiushi Academy, founded in 1897, making it one of China's oldest and most prestigious universities. Famed for its wartime westward migration and 1998 merger, it spreads across eight Hangzhou campuses today.

39. Qiaoxi Historic Block

Coordinates
30.31806, 120.13639
In one line
Qiaoxi Historic Block lines the Grand Canal beside Gongchen Bridge, a stone arch first built in 1631. Once a working wharf district, its restored lanes, old warehouses, and small museums now draw strollers along the canal's southern reaches.

40. Manjuelong (Osmanthus) Village

Coordinates
30.21806, 120.13278
In one line
Manjuelong is a wooded valley village southwest of West Lake, famous for its sweet osmanthus trees. Each autumn their fragrance fills the hills, an effect named "Sweet Osmanthus Rain," and named among the New Ten Scenes of West Lake in 1985.

41. Meijiawu Tea Village

Coordinates
30.21389, 120.08611
In one line
Meijiawu is a tea village in the hills west of West Lake, with more than 600 years of growing Longjing green tea. Its terraced gardens, pan-firing households, and roadside teahouses make it a working heart of Dragon Well tea country.

42. Hangzhou East Railway Station

Coordinates
30.2935, 120.20836
In one line
Hangzhou East is one of Asia's largest railway hubs, reopened in 2013 with 30 tracks serving six high-speed lines. A vast contemporary terminal, it links the national rail network to two Hangzhou Metro lines and city transit.

43. Tomb of Lin Bu (Gushan)

Coordinates
30.25778, 120.14333
In one line
On the quiet western slope of Gushan island rests the tomb of Lin Bu, the Northern Song hermit-poet who lived here with plum trees and cranes. A small pavilion nearby keeps his crane-releasing legend alive.

44. Zhejiang University of Technology

Coordinates
30.23, 120.04
In one line
Founded in 1953, Zhejiang University of Technology is a major public engineering school whose Hangzhou campuses hum with around 35,000 students. Its motto, "good virtue and robust practice," is drawn from the I Ching.

45. Zhejiang University Yuquan Campus

Coordinates
30.26, 120.125
In one line
Set against wooded hills near the Jade Spring, the Yuquan Campus is a historic heart of Zhejiang University, an institution rooted in the 1897 Qiushi Academy and famed for its wartime migration west.

46. Hangzhou Railway Station (City Station)

Coordinates
30.24306, 120.18167
In one line
Known to locals as Chengzhan, or city station, Hangzhou Railway Station first opened in 1907 and reopened in its present form in 1999. Designed by Cheng Taining, it sits close to the city center and West Lake.

Roots Earth in short

Roots Earth has audio stories about 5,665 places in 130 cities, 25 countries and 6 regions, written by local people.

  • No account
  • Download a city's audio, then it plays without a connection
  • Audio stories in English and German in every city, and in Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch and Albanian in 126 of the 130 cities

Roots Earth for Android is available on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rootsearth.app.