Hangzhou Metro

地铁About this metro system

Hangzhou Metro has expanded rapidly since its first line opened in 2012, reaching 12 lines by 2026 as part of the city's preparation for the Asian Games and its general infrastructure modernisation programme. The network now covers all principal urban districts and provides the first rapid transit connection to Hangzhou's Xiaoshan International Airport via Line 19.

Line 1 is the most important for visitors: it runs from Hangzhou East Railway Station through the city centre to the West Lake area (Longxiangqiao station is the closest metro stop), and continues west to the Longjing tea village region. The combination of rail station, main hotel strip, historic lake, and tea plantations along a single line is one of the more convenient metro-tourism configurations in China.

West Lake, which anchors Hangzhou's identity as a tourist city, is a UNESCO Cultural Landscape — the lake itself, its three islands, the causeways, pagodas, and the cultivated hillside landscapes surrounding it form a coherent composition that has been the subject of Chinese landscape painting, poetry, and government patronage for over a thousand years. The metro makes multiple-day exploration of the lake's different sections and the surrounding hills practical without relying on taxis.