Let’s head underwater to have a quick look around the ‘Atlantis of the East’

The how’s and why’s of this city ending up where it did is an interesting one, but it was a great move for preservation.

The city above water

You may be thinking ‘a city underwater? I bet some massive disaster was to blame, like Port Royal or Pompeii, and heaps of people died’. And normally you would probably be correct, but in this instance, my dear destination historian, it is not. Shi Cheng as it turns out was not a victim of nature, but a victim of humans.

The underwater city of Shi Cheng has actually turned out to be a brilliant time capsule of life during the times of Imperial China, and much like Port Royal and Pompeii, it can provide us with a great snapshot of the past.

Finding itself at the bottom of Qiandao Lake in the Zhejiang Province of China, Shi Cheng is actually so old that it dates to the Tang dynasty, all the way back in 621 AD, meaning that this city is about 1400 years old. Now that’s quite a long time to be sitting around, and what’s even crazier is that the city has only been underwater for about 50 years, so the place has done a great job in sticking around for so long.

You might be surprised to learn that Shi Cheng isn’t the only city in the area, He Cheng, another city, is nearby and is believed to be even older than Shi Cheng, dating back to the Han Dynasty. Now that’s quite the timeline.

While Shi Cheng is the city’s official name, it has also gone by the name Lion City, thanks to the nearby mountain of Wu Shi, which I’m told translates to Five Lion Mountain. Records of the region also suggest that the city would most likely have been pretty big, like 60 football fields big, that’s quite a way to walk if you need to get from one end to the other.

Back then, the norm when building cities was to put in your standard 4 gates, for entry and exist. What’s interesting about Shi Cheng is that it goes against the norm and actually has 5 city gates. ‘Why?’ you may wonder. Don’t ask me, but perhaps it was to deal with the large numbers of people coming in and out of the large city.

Underwater expeditions of the submerged Shi Cheng, tell us that while the city was above water, the place boasted of wide streets, an amazing 256 archways spread throughout that weren’t afraid to feature some lions, dragons and phoenixes all in stone, you can also see renditions of the ornate animals carved into buildings, walls and temples. With some historical inscriptions dating back to the 1700s.

Yes I know, 1700 is not 1400 years ago, but we have to remember that a city that old will have gone through several renditions, if not more, and there’s no rule about adding new things to make the place better and more modern. Like the city walls that are thought to date to the 16th century.

It's thought that Shi Cheng would have been at its prime from 1368 to 1644 or during the reign of the Ming Dynasty, and it’s known that the town would have served as the political, economic and cultural hub for the province. So much so that the Beijing Review describes the city of Shi Cheng like this:

There was a Confucian temple, a school, six memorial arches, and an ancient cypress in the area. It once cultivated 84 successful candidates in the highest imperial examinations and 203 in the imperial examinations at the provincial level. It served as a symbol of the profound culture of the city.

The imperial examinations were used throughout Imperial China as a way to become a civil servant, and is a little different to how the West did things. In the West it was common for titles and positions to be passed down through heritage. So you would inherit a role from your parent, think of the Peerage in England which continues to today. But in Imperial China, they decided to do things a little differently, and decided to appoint the bureaucrats on merit rather than heritage. And so if you wanted to be a bureaucrat in Imperial China you had to sit an exam to show your worth.

And the fact that Shi Cheng was a known place for sitting those exams, just shows it’s power and standing in the region as a top-tier city.

The Lake

So we know a bit about the city and what it was like before it became submerged, but how did a lake appear out of nowhere?

Well, it’s pretty simple really, China wanted to go green. Even at the expense of people’s homes.

Let me explain, in 1957 the Chinese government started construction on a hydroelectric dam. Hydro was all the rage at the time, think the Snowy Hydro Scheme in Australia around the same time, and the Chinese didn’t want to be left behind, so they got to work setting one up in north-western Zhejiang.

By the time 1959 came around the Xin’an River hydroelectric station was all set up and so they flooded the valley, creating the Qiandao Lake, also known as Thousand Island Lake, mainly due to all the peaks that were turned into islands once the valley was full. And it’s not exactly a small lake at 537 square km.

While using a renewable resource might be great. It wasn’t exactly thrilling for the nearly 300 000 people who were displaced because of the decision. Thousands of towns and villages were submerged, meaning that all the occupants were forced to leave their homes, some that families had lived in for centuries.

This lake is the reason that Shi Cheng now sits 40 metres underwater.

Now the lake doesn’t just sit there looking fresh. It is actually used to generate fresh water for a company called, Nongfu Spring, which happens to be one of China’s largest water bottle makers. And the company makes sure you know that its water is made from natural minerals and not that stuff that comes straight out of the tap.

The lake itself is a popular tourist spot, especially since themed islands started popping up. You’ve got Lock Island, Yule Island, Moonlight Island, and there’s heaps more.

We already know that Shi Cheng isn’t the only city at the bottom of the lake, there’s also He Cheng. But not only that, an expedition that set out in 2005, came across three more towns at the bottom of the lake. And ancient maps say that there could still be 20 or more cities just waiting for someone to stumble upon them. And that’s not including the more than 1300 smaller villages that are probably still down there as well. So quite the treasure trove of magnificence and fascination if you know where to look.

Shortly after Shi Cheng was flooded, it was promptly forgotten about. I mean people always knew the city, with the other towns and villages, was down there, they just didn’t know Shi Cheng was sitting around in such great excellent condition. I suppose it’s fair to think that when something gets flooded it gets ruined, but as we’ll discover in a moment that isn’t always the case.

The city below water

Shi Cheng sits perfectly preserved 40 metres under the Qiandao Lake, and sat there undisturbed until 2001 when divers made an amazing discovery. The Chinese government had sent divers into the lake to have a look around and see what they could find. What they found was an intact underwater city.

So when the divers ‘rediscovered’ Shi Cheng, they were pretty shocked to see the preservation level of the stonework, even the wood. Considering its excellent condition the city has been referred to as a ‘time capsule’ and naturally efforts have been made to map the city and document everything in its preserved state in case it is damaged, which despite the protective measures put into place is still a possibility when you have the public coming through.

Amazingly the pristine condition of the city is thanks to the quality of the water, there are no corrosive chemicals, and the water is so clean that marine life don’t even like to grow in it. So I guess Nongfu Spring is right, it’s water really is top notch quality.

And like I mentioned before, it’s not just the stone that’s preserved, the wood structures are as well. Usually wood is the first thing to go once water gets to it. But thanks to the lack of marine life and marine organisms, the wood has avoided decay. Ironically, it’s because the city was submerged in water, that it hasn’t degraded. It’s been protected from the organisms that would harm stone and wood in the air or moisture, along with damage from wind, sun and rain erosion. What a twist.

Weirdly, divers report that the lake doesn’t have all that great visibility. According to Chinese National Geography, it’s almost completely black by the time you get to 28 metres under the surface. And with the city at 40 metres deep, it would be like diving at night.

It’s an odd anomaly that a lake with water so clean it doesn’t break down anything and barely has marine life swimming around in it, that has such poor visibility. They think this is because of the amount of dirt, debris and dust that existed in the city before the flood. Supposedly that’s what’s causing the water to be cloudy. Which means it’s advised that you can only visit and explore the city of Shi Cheng if you’re already an experienced diver.

Even though the Chinese government found Shi Cheng in its amazing state of preservation in 2001, it wasn’t until 2011 that it was declared a historical relic and protected. The renewed increase in popularity was because the Chinese National Geography had chosen 2011 to publish never-before-seen photos of the preserved city, along with illustrations of what it would have looked like when it lived above water and was the economic and cultural hub for the province.

Visiting the city

Now if you’re an experienced diver you can actually get up close and personal with the remarkably preserved ruins of Shi Cheng. There are dive tours that take groups out to the city regularly between April and November.

It does come with an element of danger though, hence only experienced divers allowed. Because the city’s underwater layout is yet to be fully mapped, the dive is considered an exploratory one, so you need previous experience diving in deep water, diving at night, and experience with buoyancy.

If you want to go you do need to book with one of the handful of dive operators that conduct the tours, they’ve been around offering these tours since 2017. So make sure to do a proper google.

Now in order to get to the lake in the first place you want to head to Dashuzhen, which sits on the southwestern edge of the lake, about 400km from Shanghai, which should take you about 6 or 7 hours by car. To get to the lake itself, will actually only take you 4 hours, but to get around the lake to the town takes a little while, supposedly there’s a lot of winding roads. And then of course there’s a 10 minute boat ride to get to the actual dive site of the submerged city.

For those less adventurous travellers, just remember that Qiandao Lake is not a top tourist hotspot, so there’s no 4 star hotels, and the food options are largely traditional Chinese dishes made from fresh, local ingredients.

Now they’re pretty serious when they say experienced divers only are allowed to explore Shi Cheng. It’s quite different to diving in clear ocean water. First up all divers are required to do an initial dive in the lagoon, which bottoms out at 7 metres, so pretty shallow compared to the actual lake. As previously mentioned visibility is pretty average, and with the floor of the lake being very muddy, its easy for divers to get lost or separated from their group thanks to the reduced visibility. Not to mention that if you have an improper kicking technique or your buoyancy is out of whack, you could disturb the sediment further, effectively ruining the dive for the whole group.

Now if you’re not an experienced diver, no need to worry, the Chinese Government has put their thinking caps on to try and find a way to allow everyone else to experience the wonder of the submerged Shi Cheng.

One proposal put forward is an Archimedes bridge specially built for tourists. An Archimedes bridge, is a self-supporting bridge, and engineers would use Archimedes’ principles to create a floating underwater bridge, that would effectively allow tourists to walk through the Lake and right up to and around the ruins of Shi Cheng.

Amazingly, this was supported by multiple countries. Japan, Brazil, the US and Italy all pledged to help with building the bridge in 2003, so it seemed like a sure thing at the time. But as of 2018, nothing appears to have gotten past the planning stages. I guess those of us who aren’t divers will just have to wait and see.

Another solution put forward by Hangzhau Green Country Tourism Development Company, now that’s a mouthful, was for tourists to see the city in a tourist submarine. The submarine was even built in 2004 costing about 40 million yuan, it had seating for about 40 people and could dive to a depth of 50 metres. But alas despite the excitement among the public and China’s want to capitalise on the income of tourists, it would never be used thanks to not receiving approval for fear it would disrupt the water flow and potentially damage the city. Fair call on that one I guess.

A rather outlandish proposal for allowing tourists to visit and see the city of Shi Cheng in the flesh was to move the city out of the water and back onto dry land. There were several issues with this. One is its size, the place is bloody massive and the Chinese Government admitted that there just wasn’t a space large enough to house everything, like the temples, walls, towers, and entry gates, there just isn’t a space of flat land big enough for the city to sit.

Another pretty major issue was the degradation the city would be subjected to by being exposed to the elements once more. Divers from one of the expeditions even brought two wooden beams back up to the surface, with the idea of inspecting and analysing them further. Unfortunately as soon as they dried they had shrivelled and decayed. The wood not the divers. Which means that the best chance the city has to remain preserved is where it is right now, protected by the water.

So it seems that unless you want to go out and become an experienced diver, we’ll just have to wait for an engineer to come up with some bright idea that will allow any tourists to visit the underwater city of Shi Cheng.

Disclosure: As an affiliate marketer, we may receive a commission on products that you purchase through clicking on links within this website.