Discover Hangzhou
Flower Pond Fish Viewing Park
花港观鱼
A large free park on the lake's south-west shore built around ponds of enormous red carp, with peony terraces and wide lawns. One of the Ten Scenes and the most relaxed of them, with real space to sit.
The story
What makes this place special
The name comes from a Southern Song official, Lu Yunsheng, whose villa stood here on a creek called Flower Harbour; he dug a pool in the grounds and kept fish in it, and 'viewing fish at Flower Harbour' became one of the Ten Scenes. The Kangxi emperor rebuilt the site on his southern tour and set up an inscribed stele. It sits on the west side of the southern end of the Su Causeway.
What you’ll discover
A large free lakeside park in five parts: the red fish pool, which is the centre and holds thousands of big red carp that crowd to be fed; a peony garden on a rise; the Flower Harbour creek itself; a wide open lawn that is the main picnic and kite ground of West Lake; and a dense wooded section. It is where the Su Causeway lands, so it functions as the southern gateway to the lake.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- The fish pool is the one thing children remember from West Lake, and fish food is sold at the side. It is also the busiest few metres of the park.
- The peony garden peaks for a fortnight in April and is genuinely worth timing; most of the year it is a bank of foliage.
- The great lawn is the local Sunday institution - families, kites, picnics - and it is the single best place on the lake to sit down and watch Hangzhou enjoy itself rather than photograph scenery.
- It is where the Su Causeway ends, so it is the obvious start or finish of a causeway walk, and the Leifeng Pagoda is a short walk east along the shore.
- Free entry, no gate, open all hours - like most of West Lake, it has no ticket, which visitors who have been quoted 'West Lake tickets' should know.
When to come
April for the peonies; otherwise late afternoon, when the lawn fills up and the light is good across the lake. Mornings are quietest.
Getting around
Very good. A flat lakeside park with wide paved paths, lawns, benches and no significant gradients, fully usable in a wheelchair, and it connects directly onto the level Su Causeway. The lakeside shuttle bus stops nearby. Accessible toilets in the park.
Worth knowing before you go
The peony garden peaks in mid-April. Enter from the Su Causeway side and leave by the Yanggong Causeway gate to continue into the quiet western lake area.
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