A 1,794km waterway carved by hand

If few Beijingers make it out to the Grand Canal, even fewer travellers do. The canal is a relatively well-known attraction in southern China, where barges and cruise ships alike ply the 2,500-year- old route. In Beijing , less so: hardly anyone
realises that the canal runs an entire 1,794km north from Hangzhou to Beijing’s suburb of Tongzhou, located 35km west of Tiananmen Square.

Yet few spots are more important to Chinese history than this: the longest, oldest manmade waterway in the world, nine times longer than the Suez Canal. Without the canal, Beijing never would have been China’s capital. And without the
canal, China may not be China at all – all reasons why, in June 2014, Unesco finally inscribed the Grand Canal on its World Heritage List.