Travel headline:

The Grand Canal of China is the oldest and longest man-made canal in the world, far surpassing the next two grand canals of the world: Suez and Panama Canal. The canal is also known as the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal, and was a giant irrigation project of ancient China. The canal has been of great importance for over 2,000 years and has a length of 1,794 kilometers. In fact, it is one of the two great engineering marvels of ancient China, the other being the Great Wall. Today it is a popular tourist attraction, visited by both local and international travelers, as it is a rich cultural site. 

The canal was completed in 1291 and extends from Tongxian County in the capital of Beijing to Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province in the south. It flows through six provinces---Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and connects five large rivers---the Haihe, Yellow River, Huai River, Qiantang River and Yangtze River. The canal has about sixty bridges and twenty-four locks.

In the late Spring and Autumn Period in the 5th century B.C., a canal was first cut near Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, to guide the waters of the Yangtze River to the north. This was lengthened first during the Sui Dynasty of the 7th century, and finally during the Yuan Dynasty, in the 13th century, to become what is known today as the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal was the major transport artery between north and south China during the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and was a means of commerce, communication and cultural exchange between the north and south.

Through the dynasties, the most important task of the canal was to serve as an important route by which grain was shipped from the fertile south to the grain-consuming north. However, over the centuries more colorful goods were also transported. Prosperous economic belts emerged along the banks of the canal because of the increasing commercial activity. The canal also bore witness to cultural exchanges between the north and south regions, including numerous historical incidents, major schools of thought, important literary works and folk customs. Marco Polo even traveled on the Grand Canal in the 13th century.

Owing to the development of the maritime transport between north and south and the opening of the Tianjin-Pukou and Beijing-Hankou railways after the mid-19th century, the role of the Grand Canal was greatly diminished and many sections of it fell into disrepair or became choked with mud. Floods from the nearby Yellow River also contributed to its ruin. The Grand Canal gained a new lease on life after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Except for the section in Shandong which is only partly serviceable, many other sections are navigable in some of the seasons while the 800-kilometer stretch from Jiangsu to Zhejiang are open to year-round shipping.