With beautiful natural scenery and rich tourism resources, Hangzhou is one of the key cities for scenery tourism in the country. According to the saying that "we have paradise in the heaven and we have Suzhou and Hangzhou on the earth", Hangzhou has long attracted people's admiration, with innumerous beautiful poems dedicated to it in eulogy.
Hangzhou is covered by middle semi tropic evergreen broad-leaved vegetation, with a mean green coverage rate of 61.9 percent. Tianmu Mountain and Longtang Mountain in Lin'an City were listed as natural protecting areas atstate and provincial level. With mainly red earth and paddy soil, the earth of Hangzhou is suitable for planting tea plant and fruit tree, and Hangzhou is also one of the major producing areas of grain, oil, cotton, hemp, mulberry and vegetables. The great rivers of Hangzhou include Qiantang River, Dongshao River and the Great Canal. Being the largest one in East China littoral, Xin'an River Reservoir has a capacity of 17.8 billion m3. With 1,078 islands in the reservoir, it is also called "the Thousand-Island lake". The West Lake, in the west of Hangzhou, is famous in the world for its perfect combination of natural scenery and human-built sight, with the glimmering lake and the reflection of the mountains on it setting each other off and forming a delightful scene.
It is a brightly colorful drawing of tourism with the green-wave rippling West Lake, surging rivers, the lush Tianmu Mountains, the two rivers with their beautiful scenes, valleys with outlandish rocks and cobblestones, magnificent temples, valuable and rare historical remains.
Hangzhou is a famous city for scenery tourism. In recent years the government of the city has invested a lot to further increase the city's afforestation, to improve its image and to create beautiful surroundings. As a result, the city has achieved a green coverage ratio of 31.8%.