Their love and marriage are challenged by a Buddhist monk, Fahai, who believes that humans and demons belong to different worlds. He then traps the white snake under the Leifeng Pagoda on the bank of the West Lake.

In The Butterfly Lovers, Zhu Yingtai disguises herself as a man to study at the Wansong Academy near the West Lake. Being deeply in love, Zhu and her classmate Liang Shanbo, walk back and forth on the Long Bridge 18 times when they reluctantly have to part. Although they cannot get married due to differences between their families, their uncompromising love ultimately transforms them into butterflies, united in death as they could not be in life.

In 2007, the Hangzhou West Lake Scenic Area was rated as a National 5A-level Tourist Attraction. In 2011, the West Lake Cultural Landscape, which comprises the West Lake and the nearby hills, was inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

As UNESCO says on its official website, "The West Lake has influenced garden design in the rest of China, as well as Japan and the Republic of Korea, for centuries. It bears an exceptional testimony to the cultural tradition of improving landscapes to create a series of vistas that reflect an idealized fusion between people and nature".

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