Lineage Society on the Southeastern Coast of China: The Impact o ...

Zhejiang’s climate is subtropical with distinct monsoon seasons, and the topography is as varied as it is rugged. Popularly described as split into seven parts mountains and hills, two parts flatlands, and one part water, the province is composed of approximately 70.4 percent mountainous and hilly landscape in the south and northwest; 23.2 percent plains, river deltas, and tidal flats in the north and along the coast; and 6.4 percent water, comprising rivers and lakes, of which West Lake in Hangzhou remains the most renowned. Off the coast, which at 6486 kilometers is the longest coastline for a single province, lie over 1,800 islands (36 percent of China’s islands), of which the most famous is Zhoushan Island, China’s third largest island after the islands of Hainan Province and Chongming.³

The terrain of Zhejiang can also be subdivided into the northern plains region, made up of the Hangzhou-Huzhou-Jiaxing plains and the Ningbo-Shaoxing plains; the coastal region composed of the Qiantang and Ou river deltas; and the mountainous regions to the west and southwest. The Qiantang River, which in late imperial times formed the major artery of transportation and communication within the province, has been a river of both life and of destruction throughout history. As the southern terminus of the Grand Canal, which ends at the city of Hangzhou, the Qiantang was the waterway by which commercial goods and people alike moved between Hangzhou and the northern terminus at Beijing during late imperial times. Today the river still empties into the Hangzhou Bay, where it meets tides rushing upriver from the funnel-shaped mouth of the bay to form a tidal bore whose waves, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, occasionally combined with high winds to wreak havoc on the coastal region.⁴

The Past is a Foreign Country

The entity known today as the province of Zhejiang did not always bear its current form. In the pre-Han era, the area was home not to Han Chinese but to semi- or non-Sinicized groups collectively identified in ancient historical texts as the Baiyue (hundred Yue) peoples. Although the term may