---
node: spot_hangzhou_xixi_national_wetland_park
type: spot
slug: xixi_national_wetland_park
destination: dest_hangzhou
title: "Xixi National Wetland Park"
lead: "Xixi is China's first national wetland park, 11 square kilometres of ponds, channels and persimmon groves five kilometres west of West Lake. It is a working cultural landscape of fish ponds and mulberry banks, not wilderness."
published: 2026-08-12
updated: 2026-08-12
image_file: spot_hangzhou_xixi_national_wetland_park.jpg
image_source: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Xixi_Wetland_Park,_Hangzhou,_China.jpg"
image_author: "Yoshi Canopus"
image_license: "CC BY-SA 3.0"
---

## Overview

Farmers dug the ponds over a thousand years for fish, mulberry and reeds, leaving a maze of water and narrow banks. About a third of the park is open to visitors, reached by electric boat along the channels. Egrets and herons breed here, and the persimmon trees turn in late autumn.

## Highlights

Take the boat — walking alone gives you paths without the water perspective, which is the whole point of the place. The Hangzhou Xixi Wetland Museum explains how the pond-and-bank system worked. Spring for the plum blossom, late autumn for the persimmons and reeds; midsummer is hot and thick with insects.