The Canal That Carried the Grain
One hundred and eighty-six kilometres of the Grand Canal, the towns it made, and the gate that now controls its floods.
North Canal
The North Canal (北运河) is the 186-kilometre section of the Grand Canal that runs from Tongzhou in Beijing to Tianjin. It passes through Xianghe County in Hebei and then through the Wuqing, Beichen, Hebei and Hongqiao districts of Tianjin before joining the Hai River at Sanchahekou. It is the reason the northern plain of the municipality has towns at all: grain from the south came this way, and the settlements that handled it grew where the water allowed a wharf. Its water can now be released into the Yunchao diversion river and the Chaobai through a flood-diversion hub at Beiguan, a structure that controls more than four thousand square kilometres.