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Capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the city is surrounded by mountains in the east, south and west. It was a natural pasture in ancient times, used to be on the northern route of the well-traveled Silk Road.
It is a multinational city consisting of 13 nationalities, including Uygur, Han, Hui, Kazak, Manchu, Mongol, Xibe and Russian. In the course of their historical development, the minority nationalities have formed their own customs and habits, rich and colorful, providing Urumqi with a strong national feature.
The ideal time of a year to visit the oasis city is from May to September.
An ancient oasis town along the Silk Road, Turpan stands at the very spot where the ancient caravan route split into northern and southern paths to skirt the treacherous desert. The city lies in the great Turpan depression, 154 meters below sea level.
Turpan is hot and dry. The climate is favorable for the growth of melons, grapes and other fruits. The town is crowned with the land of fruits being known worldwide for its seedless grapes and melons. The Flaming Mountains nearby draw hundreds of thousands of visitors with their fairy-tale legends.
Established in the 2nd century AD and abandoned in the 14th century, Jiaohe city was a place that one had to pass through on the Silk Road. The remains of the citadel, lookout gate, and palace walls hearken back to the Han dynasty when Jiaohe was the center of political life in Turpan. The ruins are in better condition than those of Gaochang city, with the walls of many structures still intact.
Dotting the Gobi sands of Turpan are curiously built wells called Karez wells. They form a special irrigation system, a network of underground waterways that is more than 2,000 years old. They were built by the local people according to local climate conditions and the hydrological features of the basin.
The annual rainfall in the Turpan area is only 16mm, but annual evaporation is as high as 3,000mm. Thus it is impossible to find above ground water to irrigate the fields. But since snow often accumulates on the mountains around the basin, there is a plentiful supply of underground water and the local people, making use of the sloping terrain, were able to sink many karez wells. There are about 1,300 of these wells in the whole region. They average three kilometers in length, but the longer ones may exceed ten kilometers.
Full of vineyards set in green woods and irrigated by a network of cannals that keep the atmosphere moist, the gorge is 8 kilometers in width. It abounds with seedless white grapes, red grapes, figs, pears, apples and other fruits.
Known as the Thousand Buddha Caves, 492 of these remain today in three or four rows on a 1.5-km-long wall. The state has renovated murals like the Feitian (Flying Apsaras) fresco and repainted over 2,000 statues.
The caves at Mogao show a fascinating progression of art styles over the centuries, from the Northern and Western Wei periods (386-557 AD) on into the Tang dynasty (618-907) when the grottoes reached their artistic peak.
Dunhuang is the last stop of the Silk Road in Gansu Province and is the gateway to Xinjiang and the area beyond. Along the highway to the city of Dunhuang you may see mirages which led many ancient merchant caravans astray into the desert of death.
In the past ancient caravans from central China to the Western Region stopped at Dunhuang to replenish before they went into the Taklimakan Desert.
Dunhuang has a spectacular natural scene: Mingsha Sand Dune. The dune, a sand-crusted hill about dozens of meters high, is 40km east to west, and 20km south to north. When people slide from the hill, they hear the sighing of the sand. Hence the name.
The spring lies at the foot of the Mingsha Sand Dune and is named for its shape. It is about 100m long and 25m wide, and has fish and water weeds that are said to be good for the health. The area is often hit by windstorm, which drives up sand to shut out sun-light. Interestingly enough, however, for hundreds of years people have never seen the spring filled up with or covered by sand.
It is the western terminus of the Great Wall, built more than 600 years ago. Its majestic and solid construction is so full of power and grandeur that it has been praised as Mighty Pass No.1 Under Heaven. Unlike the Shanhaiguan Pass or the Jurongguan Pass on the Great Wall, it nestles against the Qilan Mountains and the Gobi Desert and is therefore imposing in its own way. It was a strategic point at the western section of the Great Wall of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) and is the best preserved pass along the entire length of the wall.
The capital of Shaanxi Province, and for centuries the very center of Chinese civilization, Xi'an marked the start of the famous Silk Road that linked China with central Asia, once known as Chang'an, the city served as the first capital of the unified China and capital of eleven dynasties from the 11th century BC to the early century AD.
Terracotta Warriors and Horses
Buried underground for more than 2,000 years, this grand-phalanx of the vigil-keeping Imperial Guards was "awakened" and brought into the full view of the contemporaries in 1974. This major archaeological excavation has won the title of "The Eighth Wonder of the World"
Big Wild Goose Pagoda
This pagoda stands in the Temple of Great Mercy. It was erected in 652, the third year of the Yonghui reign of Tang, by Emperor Gaozong to house the Buddhist scriptures the pilgrim Xuanzang had brought back from India. It is a square awl-shaped building of seven stories, 64 meters tall including the base, built of earth surfaced with bricks, impressive, strong and durable. It contains a collection of paintings, calligraphic pieces and sculptures of great historic value.
Ancient City Walls
The best preserved ancient city walls in China are those of Xi'an. The walls we see today were built in the 14th century. They extend around the whole city, 11.9 kilometers in length, 12 meters high, 12-14 meters wide at the top and 15-18 meters wide at the base. At each of the four sides is a city gate comprising a gate tower and an archers' tower. Tourists can ascend to the top of the walls at the south and west gates.
The Grottoes stretch for a kilometer or so on the west bank of the Yihe River, 12 kilometers south of Luoyang, one of the three great treasure houses of grotto art in China. Construction lasted 400 years.
There are more than 2,100 grotto niches, 43 pagodas, 3,600 tablets and steles and more than 100,000 statues, of which the biggest stands 17.14 meters tall and the smallest is only 1 centimeters.
