The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is the longest canal in the world.
Tips
usage
Mostly seen as a one-character abbreviation for Hangzhou in compounds: 沪杭 (Shanghai-Hangzhou), 京杭大运河 (Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal), 杭甬 (Hangzhou-Ningbo). The original 'ferry boat' meaning survives only in classical texts.
memory
木 (wood) + 亢 (kàng, phonetic). The wood radical hints at the original 'wooden boat / ferry' meaning, before the character became fixed as the city name.
Left tree radical — pictograph of a tree with branches above and roots below. It anchors 杭 in the wood family and points to its original meaning: a wooden ferry-boat or pontoon for crossing water. The Hangzhou place-name use developed later from the boat-crossing sense.
Right 亢 supplies the sound — kàng drifting to háng through historical k/h alternation. 亢 pictures a person's arched throat or neck, hence "lofty, tall." Same phonetic body appears in 航 to sail, 抗 to resist, 坑 pit, 炕 brick bed.
