The original name of Slim West Lake was Bao Zhang River which consisted of man-made moat and watercourse leading to the ancient canal with the changes of cities since Sui and Tang Dynasty. The beautiful surface of river went zigzag and extended and shrank at times. The river changed its name into Slim West Lake in Qian Long Throne (Qing Dynasty) when a poet called Wang Hang wrote a poem to praise the river: "Drooping willows continuously connect with remnant thicket grass, Yanchi Hongqiao is just like in a beautiful picture. Scenery in the lake is as beautiful as that in West Lake , therefore it can be called Slim West Lake ." Therefore, Slim West Lake got its name and was famous for this poem. There are altogether 36 lakes called "West Lake" around the world, however, the name of "Slim West Lake" refers only to the lake in Yangzhou.
People look forward to visiting the beautiful scenery of Slim West Lake for a pretty long time. Liu Daguan, who was born in Qing Dynasty, once said Hangzhou was famous for lakes and mountains and Suzhou was famous for cities and shops, while Yangzhou was famous for gardens and pavilion. Shenfu, another scholar who was also born in Qing Dynasty, praised the lake in Six Chapters of A Floating Life that "it was so ingeniously planned that it looked like a bit of nature, suggesting to me the marble halls and emerald pools and phantom gardens of Fairyland itself. The beauty of the place consisted in the fact that over a dozen private villas and home gardens combined to form a huge park, stretching all the way from the city to the hill, with a unity all its own."
