Located roughly 100 miles southeast of Shanghai, Hangzhou is one of the rising stars in the Chinese economic landscape.
While incomparable to the glamorous modern metropolitan neighbor, with around 10 million people spreading across a region of 6500 square miles, the city of Hangzhou is by no means insignificant. While the city’s popularity stems mostly from its regionally famous cultural heritage – west lake, its ever-increasing weight in China’s consumer culture also grapples the attention of the economically informed. For instance, Alibaba, one of the largest tech giants with businesses ranging from movie making, online shopping to finance and investment, scattered its headquarters around the city, giving this seemingly average city enormous say in shaping the lives of modern Chinese.
* Picture was taken in Hangzhou, next to the music fountain.