Lake Kunming
Inside Summer Palace, Haidian District, Beijing, China
Description:
Lake Kunming is the central lake on the territory of the Summer Palace in Beijing and together with the Longevity Mountain forms the key features of the landscape of the palace gardens.
It's an artificial lake. It was created in 1291 by the famous astronomer and engineer Guo Shoujing as a reservoir to supply the capital with water. In the middle of the eighteenth century, by order of Emperor Qianlong, gardens were laid around the lake.
Lake Kunming covers an area of 2.2 square kilometers. It's pretty small. Its average depth is only 1.5 meters, and the maximum is 3 meters. In 1990-1991 dredging was carried out on it and the lake was cleared of silt.