Frommer’s puts Moganshan and Anji on one destination page, as if they were two names for the same bamboo hills west of Shanghai. They are not the same kind of place. Moganshan is one mountain with a former hill station on top. Anji is a whole county, and its bamboo runs across most of it.
So Moganshan vs Anji comes down to how you travel. It decides which station you get off at and whether you need a car, and on the reported prices it moves the cost of a day by close to RMB 300 a person.
Moganshan (莫干山) is in Deqing County (德清县), Huzhou (湖州), Zhejiang, about 60 km north of Hangzhou and 200 to 240 km from Shanghai. Anji County (安吉县) is its neighbour to the west, in the same prefecture. Neither has anything to do with Moganshan Road in Shanghai, the M50 art district, which owns the search results for the name.
Moganshan vs Anji at a glance
| Moganshan | Anji | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | One mountain and its villages; a ticketed scenic area of about 20 km² | A county; its sights are scattered across the south of it |
| The bamboo | Forest covers over 92 percent of the mountain, mostly moso | About 1 million mu (亩) of bamboo, roughly 670 km² |
| What people go for | About 250 stone villas of the old hill station, walks, guesthouses | The Bamboo Sea (中国大竹海), the Cloud Grassland (云上草原) at 1,168 m |
| Nearest station | Deqing, 18 km by road from Yucun | Anji, 47 km by road from the Bamboo Sea |
| Gate price reported | RMB 80 (2023) | RMB 58 at the Bamboo Sea (2021), RMB 180 at the Cloud Grassland plus RMB 180 for its cableway (2026) |
Moganshan’s forest cover, villas and scenic area, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026; Anji’s bamboo area, Xinhua (新华网), 15 August 2024, tier 2. https://www.news.cn/digital/20240815/6c532d66e1914ebaa1abfd9f48432e99/c.html; road distances measured on OpenStreetMap, BeyondBorder Group Ltd desk research, 18 October 2026.
Why the two get mixed up
Start with the guidebook. Frommer’s files both under a single destination, “Anji and Moganshan”. Start there and you’d assume one base covers both.
One destination page for both, Frommer’s, as listed in an English web search, BeyondBorder Group Ltd desk research, 18 October 2026. https://www.frommers.com/destinations/anji-and-moganshan/
Then the film. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (《卧虎藏龙》) shot its bamboo scenes at Anji’s Bamboo Sea, not on Moganshan. Anji calls itself the China bamboo county (中国竹乡), and the national press runs the two together: a 2013 People’s Daily Digest piece was headlined “Anji: the Crouching Tiger bamboo county”.
The Bamboo Sea as the film’s location, Anji as the bamboo county, and the headline, People’s Daily Digest (人民文摘, of 人民日报), 1 August 2013, tier 2. http://paper.people.com.cn/rmwz/html/2013-08/01/content_1295217.htm
The names trip people as well. Moganshan’s market village is Yucun, written 庾村. Anji has a Yucun too, written 余村, which the UN tourism body named one of its first Best Tourism Villages in December 2021. Different characters, different county. Show a driver the characters, not the English spelling.
Anji’s 余村 among the first Best Tourism Villages, Ministry of Culture and Tourism (文化和旅游部), 2 December 2021, tier 1. https://www.mct.gov.cn/whzx/whyw/202112/t20211202_929544.htm
Searching in Chinese is no better. Of the first nine results for a two day Moganshan and Anji guide, five were template pages on Sina and Weibo that call themselves tested (实测) and end in a FAQ. The two we opened each finish with a line saying the content was generated by AI.
Search results and the AI notices on two pages, BeyondBorder Group Ltd desk research, 18 October 2026.
What all of that hides is size. Anji’s bamboo runs to about a million mu, roughly 670 km², and 840,000 mu of its moso has been put under land use transfer contracts (流转). Moganshan’s whole ticketed core is about 20 km². Even Anji’s own figure moves: a 2025 report put the bamboo at 1.08 million mu.
About 1 million mu, and 840,000 mu of moso under contract, Xinhua (新华网), 15 August 2024, tier 2. https://www.news.cn/digital/20240815/6c532d66e1914ebaa1abfd9f48432e99/c.html; 1.08 million mu, People’s Daily Overseas Edition (人民日报海外版), 20 August 2025, tier 2. https://www.forestry.gov.cn/lyj/1/gglcy/20250820/638999.html
In practice you walk through Moganshan’s bamboo, and drive through most of Anji’s on the way from one ticket gate to the next.
Getting to each
Both have a high speed station on lines from Shanghai and Hangzhou. They are not equally useful.
| Moganshan | Anji | |
|---|---|---|
| Station | Deqing (德清站) | Anji (安吉站), opened 28 June 2020 |
| From Shanghai Hongqiao | 6 direct trains a day, 63 to 93 min | 92 min on the first train, December 2024 |
| From Hangzhou | 13 to 17 min from Hangzhou East, 16 trains a day | 40 min on the opening day, 2020 |
| Station to the sights | 18 km to Yucun; Y1 shuttle RMB 10 or a taxi about RMB 100 | 24 km to the county town, 47 km to the Bamboo Sea |
Deqing trains, shuttle and taxi, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026; Anji’s opening, People’s Daily Online Zhejiang (人民网), 28 June 2020, tier 2. http://zj.people.com.cn/n2/2020/0628/c186327-34116471.html; Hangzhou in 40 minutes and the station’s distance from the county town, Hangzhou Net (杭州网), 29 June 2020, tier 2. https://hznews.hangzhou.com.cn/chengshi/content/2020-06/29/content_7764060.htm
Anji’s Shanghai link is new. The line from Hongqiao through Suzhou to Huzhou opened on 26 December 2024, and its first train left Hongqiao at 10:00 and reached Anji at 11:32. Anji had been told the trip to Shanghai, over two hours before, would shrink to about an hour. That first run took 92 minutes.
The first train and the promised hour, China Daily (中国日报网), 27 December 2024, tier 2. https://zj.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202412/27/WS676e1112a310b59111dab20f.html
We couldn’t find a published count of daily trains between Shanghai and Anji, so check the timetable before you build a plan around one.
The bigger catch is where Anji’s station sits. It stands outside Tianzihu (天子湖镇), in the north of the county, 24 km from the county town, while the Bamboo Sea and the Cloud Grassland are down in the south. Without a car or a hired driver, a good part of your day goes on getting from one to the other.
Moganshan has the opposite problem. The station is close, but from 08:00 to 17:30 cars may not drive into the scenic area. Day visitors change at a transfer centre at Yucun, Fatou or Houwu and ride a coach up. Our shuttle guide has the routes, and says why to plan on the last bus down at 17:00. Pick your train from the live Hongqiao to Deqing timetable with that clock in mind.
The car rule and its hours, Tide News (潮新闻), 4 December 2025, tier 2. https://tidenews.com.cn/news.html?id=3315585; the three transfer centres, Deqing News (德清新闻网), 30 September 2019, tier 2. https://dqnews.zjol.com.cn/dqnews/system/2019/09/30/031939856.shtml
What a day costs at each
Neither place publishes a price we could reach. The Deqing and Anji government portals would not load for us in October 2026, and the Moganshan scenic area’s own site has refused us since September. So every figure here comes from a dated report or guide, and the dates matter.
| Item | Figure | Source | Tier | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moganshan gate ticket, adult, at the window | RMB 80 | Huzhou Bendibao (湖州本地宝) | 3 | September 2023 |
| Moganshan transfer coach, up and down | RMB 35 | Huzhou Bendibao (湖州本地宝) | 3 | September 2023 |
| Moganshan loop bus inside the scenic area | RMB 15 | Youxiake (游侠客) | 3 | June 2020 |
| Bamboo Sea gate ticket | RMB 58 | Tencent News creator | 3 | February 2021 |
| Bamboo Sea glass walkway | RMB 80 | Tencent News creator | 3 | May 2020 |
| Cloud Grassland entry, adult, outside ski season | RMB 180 | Eastday (东方网) | 2 | June 2026 |
| Cloud Grassland cableway, return | RMB 180 | Eastday (东方网) | 2 | June 2026 |
Moganshan ticket and coach, Huzhou Bendibao (湖州本地宝), 21 September 2023, tier 3. http://huzhou.bendibao.com/tour/2021123/3560.shtm; loop bus, Youxiake (游侠客), 22 June 2020, tier 3. https://www.youxiake.com/gonglue/view?id=4306; Bamboo Sea, Tencent News (腾讯新闻), 14 February 2021, tier 3. https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20210214A07OG200; glass walkway, Tencent News (腾讯新闻), 24 May 2020, tier 3. https://news.qq.com/rain/a/20200523A0MTVP; Cloud Grassland, Eastday (东方网) on China Daily, 25 June 2026, tier 2. https://caijing.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202606/25/WS6a3cbecfa310d709c2fba050.html
Add it up and a day on Moganshan comes to RMB 130 a person on those figures: gate, coach and loop bus. A day taking in the Bamboo Sea and the Cloud Grassland with its cableway comes to RMB 418, before the walkway and before the car that gets you between them. A child between 1.2 and 1.5 m paid RMB 90 for the Cloud Grassland and RMB 140 for the cableway in June 2026.
Our tickets page tells the long story of the Moganshan price.
Rooms are the other cost. Here the record is thin on both sides. Xinhua reported nearly 900 licensed guesthouses around Moganshan in September 2026. For Anji we found no count on any page that would load, and for neither place a room price from a source we would print.
Nearly 900 licensed guesthouses, Xinhua Zhejiang (新华网浙江), 29 September 2026, tier 2. http://www.zj.xinhuanet.com/20260929/2bb0c09f3dc547deb5beb818d6b25693/c.html
Who should choose which
Money aside, the choice is mostly about how you like to spend a day.
Choose Moganshan if you’re coming by train and want to stay put. Deqing station is 18 km from Yucun. The transfer coach does the climbing, and the walks start at the guesthouse door. It suits people who want old stone houses, quiet paths through bamboo and an early night.
There are drawbacks. The ticketed core is small and weekends fill. The coaches stop in the late afternoon too. Our bamboo forest page says when the paths are worth walking.
Anji is for a different trip. You have a car, or don’t mind paying for a driver, and you want things to do more than places to walk. The Cloud Grassland sits at 1,168 m, with a cableway, a cliff park of more than 30 high rides and a ski season. In summer the top usually feels 5 to 6 °C cooler than Hangzhou, Eastday reported. Anji also has more than 300 village cafés, according to the deputy head of its tourism bureau.
The Cloud Grassland’s altitude and summer temperatures, Eastday (东方网) on China Daily, 25 June 2026, tier 2. https://caijing.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202606/25/WS6a3cbecfa310d709c2fba050.html; more than 300 village cafés, Xinhua (新华网), 8 October 2026, tier 2. https://www.news.cn/politics/20261008/8c9efc40e56f43b98be9df334cc7aa4d/c.html
Anji asks more of you in return. The distances are long and the big attractions cost more. Nor is there one place that feels like the centre. Families who want rides will find more of them there; anyone hoping for a weekend without a driver will not.
Doing both in one weekend
It can be done, but only with wheels. By road, Yucun is 29 km from Anji’s county town and 49 km from the Bamboo Sea, and no bus between the two turns up in anything we read. Ask your guesthouse to book a car and driver for the day. None of the reports gives a day rate, so agree the price and the hours before you set off.
Road distances measured on OpenStreetMap, BeyondBorder Group Ltd desk research, 18 October 2026.
Pick one base and treat the other as a day out. Sleep on Moganshan if you want the evenings quiet and the walks on the doorstep; the rooms in the Moganshan resort zone are listed together on Trip.com. If most of your plan is the Cloud Grassland, sleep in Anji. That’s the long drive.
The two stations also give you an open route. Come in to Anji from Hongqiao, drive across and leave from Deqing for the train home. Anji station to Yucun is 49 km by road. That saves doubling back, though it does mean a car for the middle of the trip.
Give it two nights. Each crossing to Anji’s southern sights is about 50 km by road, and with one night you get two of those and a rushed sight in between. Our weekend from Shanghai has the Moganshan half planned hour by hour, and the itineraries section has the rest.
Booking the Moganshan half
In the order you’ll need them.
- Train. Hongqiao to Deqing on the live Shanghai timetable, or from Hangzhou East on the Hangzhou timetable.
- Room. The hotels and guesthouses in the Moganshan resort zone, on Trip.com’s list.
- Gate ticket. The scenic area ticket, sold on Trip.com; check the price on the day rather than trusting any figure here.
These are Trip.com links, and we earn a commission if you book through them. How this site is funded has the detail. The commission played no part in what this page says about either place.
Last checked 1 November 2026 by Echo Peng. Prices, timetables and entry rules on this mountain move without notice, so confirm anything you are booking around.
Photographs on this site are representative illustrations, not documentary images of the specific building, property or service described.
