Hangzhou, capital city of Zhejiang province, is emerging as a pioneer in the construction of characteristic towns, with two more recently listed among the second batch of towns with distinctive features.

This takes the total of characteristic towns now in Hangzhou to four, including the newly listed Cloud Town and E-Fashion Town.

Dubbed the "Silicon Valley of China", Cloud Town is the first ecological town for the cloud computing industry in China. With cloud computing and big data as its focus, the town has become an innovative base with over 500 industrial projects and an array of hi-tech companies in online games, internet finance and mobile internet and app development.

E-Fashion Town, located in the Yuhang district of Hangzhou, features an increasingly prosperous fashion industry and has gathered a group of renowned designers and fashion brands. A total of 405 fashion companies have stationed in the town during the past three years.

According to authorities, a characteristic town is neither a town defined administratively nor an industrial zone, but is rather an area with specific industry orientations, cultural elements, tourism features and community functions.

Since its inception in August 2014, three batches of characteristic towns have been rolled out with over one hundred towns set up as platforms for industrial innovation in Zhejiang.

An aerial view of Cloud Town in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. [Photo/zjol.com.cn]

E-Fashion Town in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. [Photo/hangzhou.com.cn]