The Five Lakes or Wu Hu (Chinese: 五湖; pinyin: wǔhú), is a Chinese historical and geographical concept that has been used to describe various lakes in China.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/West_Lake_at_night_in_Hangzhou.jpg/220px-West_Lake_at_night_in_Hangzhou.jpg)
The Five Lakes most commonly refer to are five freshwater lakes in eastern and central China: Lake Tai in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, Hongze Lake in Jiangsu, Lake Chao in Anhui, Poyang Lake in Jiangxi, and Dongting Lake in Hunan.[1]
In several ancient texts, including the Rites of Zhou and Records of the Grand Historian, the term was used to describe only Lake Tai.[2] Various sources have described other lakes as the Five Lakes.[3] One European 19th century encyclopedia identifies West Lake in Zhejiang as one of the Five Lakes in place of Lake Chao.[4]
Idiomatic expression
editIn modern parlance, the idiom the "five lakes and four seas" is used to describe a vast domain, such as the entire country or the entire world.[5]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ (Chinese)中华五湖
- ^ (Chinese)史記今註, Volume 6
- ^ (Chinese) "五湖" 中國古代地名大詞典
- ^ Georg Lehner, China in European Encyclopaedias, 1700-1850 p. 106
- ^ Tan Chung, Chinese say all within four seas are brothers and sisters Shanghai Daily 2013-12-07