Suzhou is located in the south of Jiangsu province, some 50 miles west of Shanghai , along the old Grand Canal . The city has been famous for its gardens for many centuries. According to a Chinese proverb says: I n heaven there is paradise. On earth there are Suzhou and Hangzhou . Suzhou has also long been noted for its beautiful women. The city is dotted with lakes and ponds connected by a spider's web of canals . And all the canals are lined with whitewashed houses with gray-tiled roofs.

The canals of the town eventually join up with the famous local waterway known as the Grand Canal , located to the west of the city. It is believed to be the largest internal waterway in the world, and was originally constructed to carry tribute grain from the Yang zi plain to the capital. Marco Polo, who visited Suzhou in the 13th century, wrote that the great Khan... has made a huge canal of great width and depth from river to river and from lake to lake and made the water flow along it so that it looks like a big river . By this means it is possible to go ... as far as Khan-balik ( as Beijing was known in the Yuan Dynasty). Although the canal is not used for long-distance transport today , it is still heavily used by a great number of flat-bottomed boats under sail and engine power conveying agricultural produce to nearby towns.