  We establish several relations between quantum error correction (QEC) and
tensor network (TN) methods of quantum many-body physics. We exhibit
correspondences between well-known families of QEC codes and TNs, and
demonstrate a formal equivalence between decoding a QEC code and contracting a
TN. We build on this equivalence to propose a new family of quantum codes and
decoding algorithms that generalize and improve upon quantum polar codes and
successive cancellation decoding in a natural way.
