BEIJING — On the banks of a river on the outskirts of China’s teeming capital, a sign on a blocked pathway gently warned people away: “It’s the black swan’s incubation period, please quietly go around.”
From a platform above, visitors at the Qinghe Waterfront Green Corridor watched as the swan guarded several eggs in her nest, getting prickly with the occasional duck that wandered too close. Other birds swam nearby as the sun sparkled on the water from a clear blue sky.
“At first, there were no ducks, and now swans from Yuanmingyuan come here because the environment has improved,” said Liu Junping, referring to the nearby Old Summer Palace.
“Qinghe” means “clear river” in Chinese, but it’s only in recent years that Beijing residents began using those words to describe the canal, which runs along a highway in the city’s Haidian district. The improvement is attributed to upgrades in nearby wastewater treatment facilities, which in the past had been so overwhelmed that raw sewage was sometimes discharged directly into the river.
Liu, who comes to the river park for a stroll every day, said it had a “good vibe.”
“The water here used to be smelly,” he said. “Now it’s treated very clean, and you can see fish everywhere.”
The Qinghe green corridor, which opened last October and runs for about two-thirds of a mile, is part of a larger greenification project in Beijing and across China that aims to improve environmental standards as well as people’s quality of life.
“Because Beijing has too many people, and the population density is high, everyone is under a lot of pressure,” said park visitor Jing Yang, 28. “Building parks like this can satisfy people of all ages, allowing young and old people to get away from work and relax.”
Parks are a long-standing feature of Beijing, a city of more than 22 million people, where the most famous green spaces include the former imperial gardens of Beihai Park and Jingshan Park. But the pace of park construction has been picking up, with state media reporting in January that the aim is for 91% of residents to have access to green space within about a third of a mile.
According to the Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Natural Resources, Beijing now has 1,065 parks and more than 180 square feet of green space per capita.
“The goal is to make Beijing a garden capital with clear skies, clean water, abundant forests and harmonious living environments,” it said in a statement.
In the past 20 years, Beijing and most other Chinese cities have made “huge investments” in landscaping and green space, said Liu Dongyun, an associate professor of landscape architecture at Beijing Forestry University.
“I feel that this kind of investment is what people can see and touch and experience the leisure opportunities it brings firsthand,” he said.
Since around 2000, the amount of green space per capita nationwide has increased to about 160 square feet from less than 50 square feet, he said.
The importance of green space in cities across China has become more apparent in recent decades as rapid urbanization was accompanied by suffocating pollution that in Beijing peaked around 2013. Though air quality has since improved, parks provide welcome respite from the fast pace and relentless traffic of sprawling cities such as Beijing, especially for young people pushing back against China’s intense working conditions.
This spring, the hashtag “20-minute park effect” was popular on Xiaohongshu, China’s equivalent of Instagram, where users posted photos of themselves picnicking next to lakes or basking in the sun on benches.
The public desire for parks was reinforced by three years of some of the strictest Covid-19 restrictions in the world, including lockdown periods in Shanghai and other cities, during which tens of millions of people were largely confined to their homes.
Some outdoor lovers are now making up for lost time.
“During the pandemic, it was risky and challenging to go out, and many people avoided doing so,” said a woman with the last name Zhan while visiting the Jingzhang Railway Heritage Park in northwestern Beijing.
Now, she said, “not only are more people going for walks, but there is also an increase in outdoor activities and travel.”
Zhan, 26, who like many in China declined to give their full name to a reporter, said she felt Beijing’s environmental quality was “much better” than before the pandemic.
“People used to joke that the sky would only turn blue when there was a meeting or a major event,” she said. “However, in the past three years, I feel the air quality has been quite good.”
The Jingzhang Railway Heritage Park, which opened last year and features a historic train carriage, stretches for more than 5 1/2 miles and was built on the old tracks of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, China’s first independently built rail line. Chinese state media reported that the park was inspired by the High Line in New York.
Zhu Lixia, a retired Chinese teacher who lives nearby, said the railway park has “made our lives better.”
“We can play whenever we want, see if there are any activities to join,” she said. “One day, they even offered a calligraphy class in the park, and we all went. People also bring speakers here to sing.”
Before it opened, she said, “there was nowhere to go.” She would go to more distant places such as the botanical garden, the Old Summer Palace and Yuyuantan Park.
“I just feel happier and more relaxed when I come to this park,” she said.
Liu, who helped to plan and design the railway park, said it was a good example of a linear park that connects different spaces. Unlike many other parks in Beijing, he said, the park is not enclosed by a physical wall, opening it up to the urban areas around it.
“This not only integrates the city as a whole but also catalyzes the renewal and development of the surrounding neighborhoods,” he said.
Liu acknowledged that after years of feverish construction, “we can’t simply keep building more parks indefinitely.”
“The focus now should be on properly operating and maintaining the existing parks,” he said, “adding more facilities and activities to encourage greater usage by the general public.”