The second Grand Canal Culture and Tourism Expo will be held from the 3rd to 7th of September, with the main venue in the city of Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, and the sub-venue in the city of Huai'an. This year's Grand Canal Expo will carry on the theme of "Integration, Innovation and Sharing" from the first Grand Canal Expo, while innovatively adopting the integrated form of offline and online, whereby offline crowd traffic will be contained and online live broadcasting will take place. Visitors can experience the rich culture of the Grand Canal in the comfort of their homes.

The 1st Grand Canal Culture and Tourism Expo (Yangzhou, 2019) -Flower Boat Night Trip

The Grand Canal, also known as the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, was built in 486 BC, more than 2,500 years ago, with a total length of 1,794 km, and spans across eight provinces and directly administered municipalities, namely Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Henan, and Anhui. The Grand Canal has played a significant role in the development of north-south transportation and the communication of the economy and culture between the north and the south in the course of the history of the Chinese nation. In 2014, the Grand Canal project was successfully selected for inclusion in the World Heritage List.

Jiangsu Province is at the core area of the Grand Canal heritage, and the Jiangsu section of the Grand Canal has been identified as the key construction area for the Grand Canal National Cultural Park. Wuxi City in Jiangsu Province was born and prospered because of the canal. The Wuxi section of the Grand Canal was formed in the Spring and Autumn Period (770–476 BC), developed in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and is the earliest section of the canal in the south of the Yangtze River in written records.

 

Qingming Bridge (Wuxi) / Photo by Dmitry Sergeychev (Russia)

Morning Scene of The Canal (Suqian) / Photo by Liang Zhenyu

Mascot “Fortune” and “Happiness”

This year's Grand Canal Expo, held against the backdrop of global pandemic Covid-19, highlights even more the integration of offline and online activities. China Cultural Center in The Hague will be broadcasting live overseas the opening ceremony and theme shows of the Expo.

Time: 3rd September, 2:00-3:20 pm, local time in the Netherlands.

For the live-stream link, please click to copy.https://www.facebook.com/CCCDenHaag/live/

Waterside Lanes In Jiangnan/ Photo by Wu Zhujuan

APEC venue, Yanxi Lake (Beijing)

Gongchen Bridge (Zhejiang, Hangzhou)/ Photo by Hansheng

Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal- Gongchen Bridge

Cruise ship and Home port (Tianjin) / Photo by Macheng

Rongcheng swan Lake (Shandong)

Yellow River Delta wetland (Shandong) / Photo by Liu Yueliang

(Penglai, Yantai, Shandong) / Photo by Liu Guodong

Landscape of Sanhe (Anhui)

Special thanks to:
Jiangsu Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, Wuxi Municipal Bureau of Culture, Broadcasting and Tourism