Tongzhou Canal Park, with a planned total length of 4,600 meters, is a comprehensive venue integrating leisure, entertainment, education, sports competition, fitness, and water-based tourism and sightseeing. It is also the largest urban park in the eastern suburbs of Beijing. The Grand Canal Forest Park is distributed in a strip along both sides of the North Canal, with five distinctive functional docks built along the banks, serving as stops for water-based tours.
There are six scenic areas on both sides of the river, with a total of 18 scenic spots, reflecting the ecological, low-carbon, and humanistic concepts of Tongzhou New City. Historical records indicate that Tongzhou has always been a vital transportation hub in the eastern suburbs of Beijing, a key location for grain transport and storage. The canal’s grain transport was crucial to the nation, and throughout history, Tongzhou was considered a strategic and important town, earning it the reputation of ‘the upper armpit of the nine-tiered residence, the throat of the six states’ strong town’. Some memoirs mention that ships and tourists from the south and north intermingled and flowed continuously here. Docks, granaries, merchants, taverns, and guesthouses were all present. The cultural atmosphere was also very rich, with scholars coming and going in the Luhe Academy, and continuous incense in some temples. Tongzhou, driven by the canal, once thrived and prospered immensely. The canal has been nominated for World Heritage status, and the ‘Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is the longest artificial river in the world and one of the two great engineering marvels of ancient China, alongside the Great Wall. ‘ There were three major excavations in history: the first was in 486 BC, the Han Gou excavated by King Fuchai of Wu; the second was from 605 to 609 AD, when Emperor Yang of Sui reopened Han Gou and extended it northward; the third was in 1283, during the Yuan Dynasty’s Zhi Yuan period, when significant construction took place, forming the scale seen today. Guo Shoujing oversaw the opening of the Hui River, allowing ships from the south to navigate the Tonghui River, reaching the capital city. The park is open all year round from 9:00 to 21:00.Tongzhou Canal Park
Tongzhou Canal Park, with a planned total length of 4,600 meters, is a comprehensive venue integrating leisure, entertainment, education, sports […]
