Overview

Ranked as the fifth largest fresh water lake in China, Chaohu Lake covers an area of 800 square kilometers, which makes the City a famous tourist destination in Anhui Province. The vast surface of the lake is dotted with numerous boats. And it looks like a bowl between the Yangtze River and Huaihe River. In the middle of the lake stand two islands, one is Gushan Mountain and the other is Laoshan Mountain. The lake is surrounded by three hot springs (namely, Bantang Hot Spring, Xiang quan Hot Spring and Tangchi Hot Spring) and four national forest parks (namely, Taihu Mountain Forest Park, Jilong Mountain Forest Park, Yefu Mountain Forest Park and Tianjin Mountain Forest Park), as well as five solution cavities (namely, Xianren Solution Cavity, Ziwei Solution Cavity, Wangqiao Solution Cavity, Huayang Solution Cavity and Boshan Solution Cavity). All these natural sceneries have contributed extraordinary enchanting beauty to the Chaohu Lake, which is located in the middle of them, and thus become an exquisite three-dimensional landscape picture.

There is a legend concerning the formation of Chaohu Lake: the area of Chaohu Lake used to be land, but one day it suddenly fell greatly and became a lake; there was a prophet named Jiaopo who led the population to the top of the mountain and thus helped them survive the disaster. According to the legend, , Chaohu Lake is also called “Jiao Lake” in order to memorize the prophet Jiaopo. In fact, Chaohu Lake is rift tectonics, long and narrow in its shape, which looks like a nest with a bird’s eye view. Thus it is called “Chaohu Lake” (which literally means the nest lake).





Chaohu is blessed with a variety of products, including the “Four Treasures on the Water”, namely, the crab, the whitebait, the dried shrimps and the pearls. A lot of historical stories took place here, among which “the Emperor of Shang Dynasty Tang exile the last Emperor of Xia Dynasty Jie to Chaohu”, “Wu Zixu passed Shaoguan during his escape” and “King of Chu made suicide by cutting his throat beside Wujiang River” are the most famous ones. The well-known generals Feng Yuxiang, Zhang Zhizhong and Li Kenong were all born here. The innumerous natural sceneries and places of historic interest interact with the enchanting beauty of Chaohu Lake, forming the unique scenery of Chaohu City.