South Lake () is a

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

in the South of

Jiaxing Jiaxing (), alternately romanized as Kashing, is a prefecture-level city in northern Zhejiang province, China. Lying on the Grand Canal of China, Jiaxing borders Hangzhou to the southwest, Huzhou to the west, Shanghai to the northeast, and the p ...

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiang ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, and covers an area of 0.54 km². It is also known as "Mandarin Duck Lake" due to its shape. Alongside the lake are the ruins of the Misty Rain Tower, which was first built in the 10th century AD. In the year 1548, during the

Ming Dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

, the local government dredged the waterways and piled up the mud into the center of South Lake, forming an

islet An islet is a very small, often unnamed island. Most definitions are not precise, but some suggest that an islet has little or no vegetation and cannot support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/or hard coral; may be permanen ...

. The Misty Rain tower was rebuilt on the islet the next year. In the following years, a group of ancient garden-style architectures emerged around it. The 1st National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party was transferred from

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

in 1921 and the final agenda was carried out in a boat on South Lake, which concluded with the establishment of the party.

References

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20051225114826/http://www.chinapages.com/zhejiang/jiaxing/jg/e-ly.html *http://www.chinaplanner.com/zhejiang/zja_slak.htm {{National meetings of the Chinese Communist Party Lakes of China Lakes of Zhejiang Jiaxing