West Lake, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
白堤 · Báidī
A kilometre of willows and peach trees on a strip of earth across the north of West Lake, from a bridge that is not broken to a hill that is not quite an island. It is the lake's front door, its most crowded spot, and the place where the White Snake met her husband.
Photo: User:CatOnMars, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
You are on a hump-backed stone bridge with a crowd round you. Ahead, a straight raised path runs out across the water, lined on both sides with weeping willows, and at its end is a wooded hill with pavilions. On your left the lake opens wide to the hills. On your right is a narrower stretch of water, still and green, with a thin pagoda on the ridge above it.
The causeway was already here in the Tang (618–907). The poet Bai Juyi, who governed Hangzhou from 822 to 824, rode along it in spring and wrote that he loved it best of all. He called it the White Sand Causeway. In Europe Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious ruled the Franks.
Part of West Lake, Hangzhou. Also there: Solitary Hill, Yue Fei's Temple, Su Causeway, Three Pools Mirroring the Moon, Leifeng Pagoda, Lingyin Temple.
The causeway, both bridges and the terrace are free and open day and night.
| Part | Ticket |
|---|---|
| The Broken Bridge | Free |
| The causeway | Free |
| Autumn Moon on Calm Lake | Free |
The causeway is about a kilometre long and joins the shore to Solitary Hill. It divides the lake: the big open water to the south, and the small, sheltered Beilihu, the "North Inner Lake", to the north. A second bridge in the middle lets the water through.
Bai Juyi did build a dyke while he governed the city, but it stood outside the old Qiantang Gate and has long gone. Later generations ran the two together, and the White Sand Causeway became the Bai Causeway.
The willows and peaches are planted turn and turn about, so that in early spring the causeway is green and pink together.
"The bridge is broken." It is whole. After snow the sunny crown melts first and from a distance the white arch seems to have a gap. Another explanation is older: this is where the road from Solitary Hill broke off.
"Bai Juyi built it." See above: he praised it, he did not make it.
"The bridge you see is a thousand years old." It has been rebuilt many times. The present arch dates from 1921 and has been repaired since.
Walk from the Broken Bridge westward along the causeway to Solitary Hill. It takes twenty minutes without stopping.
The low single arch carries the road from the shore onto the causeway. In the Southern Song (1127–1279), when Hangzhou was the capital, this was already one of the Ten Scenes.
At the east end, in a small pavilion, stands the tablet with the Kangxi Emperor's four characters. Every one of the Ten Scenes has a tablet like it; finding them all is a good way to walk the lake.
Look left and right as you walk. On the left the outer lake is wide and busy with boats. On the right the North Inner Lake is narrow and calm, and above it on Gem Hill stands the slender Baochu Pagoda, rebuilt in 1933 on a much older base.
孤山寺北贾亭西， 水面初平云脚低。 几处早莺争暖树， 谁家新燕啄春泥。 乱花渐欲迷人眼， 浅草才能没马蹄。 最爱湖东行不足， 绿杨阴里白沙堤。
North of Solitary Hill temple, west of the Jia pavilion, the water lies level and the clouds hang low. Here and there the first orioles fight for warm trees; whose new swallows peck the spring mud? Wild flowers begin to dazzle the eye; the short grass barely hides a horse's hooves. I love the east of the lake best and cannot ride it enough: the White Sand Causeway in the shade of green willows.
Bai Juyi, A Spring Ride on Qiantang Lake, about 823
Half-way along, a second, smaller bridge lets water pass between the two parts of the lake. Its name means "Brocade Sash". From its top look back east: the city's towers rise straight out of the trees behind the Broken Bridge.
The causeway ends at a terrace built out over the water at the foot of Solitary Hill. This is another of the Ten Scenes. The water here is wide and low, and on an autumn night the moon seems to lie on it. The terrace, the pavilion and the tablet were rebuilt in the Qing (1644–1912).
From here the road runs on round the hill. Solitary Hill has its own page.
| Year | Here | Elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| 822–824 | Bai Juyi governs Hangzhou and rides along the causeway | Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious rules the Franks |
| 1127–1279 | The Broken Bridge becomes one of the Ten Scenes | Gothic cathedrals rise across France |
| 1699 | The Kangxi Emperor writes the names of the Ten Scenes | Peter the Great is reforming Russia |
| 1921 | The present bridge is built | The tenth year of the Republic of China; the year of the Washington Naval Conference |
| 1933 | Baochu Pagoda is rebuilt above the causeway | Hitler comes to power in Germany |
Films from official channels, played from YouTube. Nothing is loaded until you press play.
These are stories people tell about this place. They are legends, not history, and each one says where it comes from.
On a spring day of sudden rain, the White Snake, who had taken the form of a young woman, stood with her maid on the Broken Bridge. A young man named Xu Xian lent them his umbrella, and that was how they met. Years later, after she escaped from the monk Fahai, they met again on the same bridge.
Source: Feng Menglong, Stories to Caution the World, 1624, and later operas
A poor couple named Duan sold wine from a hut by this bridge. A traveller paid them with a magic gift that made their wine famous, and the bridge took their name, Duanjia Bridge, which became Duan Bridge, the "Broken Bridge".
Source: Hangzhou folk tale
Later, people who live here will be able to add the stories they grew up with, and say which of these they have heard.
Last checked 2026-11-12. Hangzhou city news reports of 2025 and 2026; the causeway is free and has no ticket office of its own.
Checked 2026-11-12
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