Kunming Lake

Kunming Lake is located inside the Summer Palace in Beijing. It covers about three quarters of the Summer Palace, with an area of 3000 mu(about 2 square kilometers). The Summer Palace is the existing scale and most magnificent of Chinese classical gardens. Together with the Longevity Hill, Kunming Lake forms the key landscape features of the Summer Palace gardens. It is located by the southern side of Longevity Hill, which is a part of Xishan Mountain and has a relative height of 60 meters. This lake is a man-made lake, so it is a little bit shallow, with an average depth of only 1.7 meters.

There are a total of 6 bridges around the lake. They all have different shapes. And the largest bridge here is the 17-arch Bridge, which connects the eastern shore with South Lake Island and is 150 meters long. Near to the bridge, there is a bronze ox sculpture on the eastern shore of this lake. Kunming Lake was designed to represent the traditional Chinese gardening practice of "one pond, three hills", which contains rich Chinese geomantic theory.

History of Kunming Lake
It is said that Kunming Lake has a history of 3500 years. It was originally made in Yuan Dynasty by a Water designer and scientist, called Guo Shoujing. The function of it was to be used as sources of water for both the city and the irrigation of fields. In Ming Dynasty, there are planted a lot of lotus in the lake. So except for the irrigation function, people came here to appreciate the lotus flower, especially the poets. As they saw the beautiful scenery of this lake, they made poems of it. When it came to Qing Dynasty, this area was changed into an imperial garden, which was commissioned by Qianlong Emperor. The conversion project was carried out between 1750 and 1764. During this conversion, this lake was extended by a workforce of almost 10,000 laborers. 

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