Jiangsu Geography & Climate

Jiangsu is the flattest province in China — over two-thirds of it is plain and less than one per cent rises above two hundred metres — and it is defined by water.

The Yangtze delta

The river enters the East China Sea here, and the southern half of the province is its delta: a network of rivers, canals, lakes and reclaimed land with the water table close to the surface. Lake Tai, the third largest freshwater lake in China, sits at its centre and supplies the rockwork prized in the gardens — eroded limestone hauled from the lakebed and, historically, sometimes shaped and returned to the water for decades to weather further.

The Grand Canal

The world’s longest artificial waterway, begun in the fifth century BC and completed under the Sui around 609, runs some 1,800 kilometres from Hangzhou to Beijing and through the length of Jiangsu. Substantial stretches are still in commercial use, carrying barge traffic, and it is UNESCO-listed.

The coast

Around a thousand kilometres of low tidal flats and salt marsh rather than beaches, including the Yancheng wetlands where red-crowned cranes winter and the last wild Pere David’s deer were reintroduced.

Living with the water

The flatness has always been a problem as well as an asset. With the water table at the surface and the Yangtze and the Huai both prone to flooding, the region has been engineered for two thousand years — dykes, polders, sluices and pumped drainage — and the Huai river’s repeated changes of course after the Yellow River captured its bed in 1194 devastated the north of the province for centuries until the outlet was rebuilt in the 1950s.

A changing shoreline

Yangtze sediment has extended the coast substantially in historical time; cities that were ports are now inland.

Jiangsu has a humid subtropical climate with four distinct seasons, two of which are brief and two of which are hard work.

Summer

June to August is hot and very humid, 30 to 36°C with saturated air and little wind. Nanjing is one of the traditional three furnaces of China, and the reputation is earned. June brings the meiyu — the plum rains — several weeks of grey drizzle and high humidity named for the season when plums ripen, during which nothing dries.

Winter

December to February is 0 to 8°C and damp. The province sits south of the Qinling-Huai line, which historically determined which buildings got state-supplied central heating, so older buildings have none and indoor temperatures track outdoor ones. A Jiangnan winter feels considerably colder than the numbers, and locals will tell you so at length.

Spring and autumn

Short and excellent. Late March to May brings blossom — plum, then cherry, then magnolia — and October and November are dry, clear and the classic garden season.

Typhoons

Occasionally reach the coast between July and September, usually weakened, bringing heavy rain rather than destructive wind.

Gardens through the year

The gardens were designed to be used in every season and reward a winter visit more than visitors expect: the structure of the rockwork and the architecture reads clearly without foliage, plum blossoms in February, and snow on a tiled roof over a frozen pond is the composition several of these gardens were built for. They are also almost empty then, which the designers would have preferred.

Osmanthus

Flowers in late September and scents entire neighbourhoods, which is a genuine seasonal marker here.