CHAPU  , formerly an important maritime

town of China, in the province of Cheh-kiang, 5o m . N.W. of Chen-hai, situated in one of the richest and best cultivated districts in the country . It is the port of Hang-chow, with which it has good canal communication, and it was formerly the only Chinese port trading with Japan . The town has a circuit of about 5 M. exclusive of the suburbs that lie along the beach; and the Tatar quarter is separated from the rest by a wall . It was captured and much injured by the British force in 1842, but was abandoned immediately after the engagement . The sea around it has now silted up, though in the middle of the 19th century it was accessible to the light-draught ships of the British fleet .