Cangzhou lies on the low eastern plain, where the Grand Canal and its branch waterways carried salt, grain and people north towards Beijing. The city's best-known object is a cast iron lion made in 953, one of the largest iron sculptures surviving from the period. Wuqiao County, south of the city, is the home of a famous acrobatic tradition, and the canal still shapes the towns along its course.
Wuqiao County in Cangzhou has produced acrobats for centuries, first as slack-season work on poor land. Its art is national intangible heritage, and its props are still ordinary household things: ropes, bowls, jars and knife gates.
The iron lion at Cangzhou weighs 32 tonnes and carries a date of 953. It stands in the old county city at Jiuzhou, and three explanations of its purpose survive, none proved; each repair since 1957 has brought a new problem.
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The Grand Canal runs through the centre of Cangzhou, and a city district is named after it. The channel, its place in the 2014 World Heritage listing and the town it shaped are easier to trace than the boat crews who worked it.
ReadA canal-side county in the south of Cangzhou, famous for acrobatics that travelled with fairs and troupes.
A cast iron lion made in 953, one of the largest surviving iron sculptures of the period.
The canal reach through Cangzhou, which carried grain, salt and passengers on the eastern route to Beijing.
