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48-594: Jiayuguan is a major industrial city. In 1958, Jiuquan Iron and Steel Works established in Jiuquan, Gansu . In 1965, parts of Jiuquan County and Sunan Yugur Autonomous County (Including Jiuquan Iron and Steel Works) were marked out to establish the County-level Jiayuguan City, which is under the direct jurisdiction of Gansu Government. Following Jiuquan Iron and Steel Works, the largest Iron and Steel Works in Gansu,

96-650: A subarctic climate ( Dwc ) – with winter temperatures sometimes dropping to −40 °C (−40 °F). Most of the limited precipitation is delivered in the summer months: winters are so dry that snow cover is confined to very high altitudes and the snow line can be as high as 5,500 metres (18,040 ft) in the southwest. Gansu is divided into fourteen prefecture-level divisions : twelve prefecture-level cities and two autonomous prefectures : The fourteen Prefecture of Gansu are subdivided into 86 county-level divisions (17 districts , 5 county-level cities , 57 counties , and 7 autonomous counties ). Secretaries of

144-415: A moat. When famous traveler Mildred Cable first visited Jiayuguan in 1923, she described it as To the north of the central arch was a turreted watch-tower, and from it the long line of the wall dipped into a valley, climbed a hill and vanished over its summit. Then a few poplar trees came in sight, and it was evident from the shade of green at the foot of the wall that here was grass and water. Farther on

192-430: A patch of wild irises spread a carpet of blue by the roadside, just where the cart passed under an ornamental memorial arch and lurched across a rickety bridge over a bubbling stream. A fabulous legend recounts the meticulous planning involved in the construction of the pass. According to legend, when Jiayuguan was being planned, the official in charge asked the designer to estimate the exact number of bricks required and

240-467: A somewhat fearsome reputation because Chinese people who were banished were ordered to leave through Jiayuguan for the west, the vast majority never to return. Mildred Cable noted in her memoirs that it was known to men of a former generation as Kweimenkwan (Gate of the Demons)....The most important door was on the farther side of the fortress, and it might be called Traveller's Gate, though some spoke of it as

288-621: Is Mandarin. Gansu is among the poorest administrative divisions in China, ranking last in GDP per capita as of 2019. The state of Qin originated in what is now southeastern Gansu, and later established the first imperial dynasty in Chinese history. The Northern Silk Road ran through the Hexi Corridor , which passes through Gansu, resulting in it being an important strategic outpost and communications link for

336-517: Is a province in Northwestern China . Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou , in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at 453,700 square kilometres (175,200 sq mi), Gansu lies between the Tibetan and Loess plateaus and borders Mongolia 's Govi-Altai Province , Inner Mongolia and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to

384-458: Is a building. An inscription of "Jiayuguan" in Chinese is written on a tablet at the building at the west gate. The south and north sides of the pass are connected to the Great Wall. There is a turret on each corner of the pass. On the north side, inside the two gates, there are wide roads leading to the top of the pass. Jiayuguan consisted of three defense lines: an inner fort, an outer fort, and

432-435: Is abbreviated as 甘 ( Gān ) or 陇 ( Lǒng ), and was also known as Longxi ( 陇西 ; 'west of Long') or Longyou ( 陇右 ; 'right of Long') prior to early Western Han dynasty , in reference to Mount Liupan between eastern Gansu and western Shaanxi . Until 1987, Gansu was rendered in the postal romanization and Wade-Giles as Kansu , which gradually replaced by pinyin starting in 1958. The spelling of

480-528: Is one of the Chinese provinces with smallest per capita area of arable land. Agricultural production includes cotton , linseed oil , maize , melons (such as the honeydew melon , known locally as the Bailan melon ), millet , and wheat . Gansu is known as a source for wild medicinal herbs which are used in Chinese medicine . However, pollution by heavy metals, such as cadmium in irrigation water, has resulted in

528-579: Is one of the main passes of the Great Wall. In the Ming period, foreign merchants and envoys from the Central Asia and West Asia mostly entered China through Jiayu Pass. The pass is located at the narrowest point of the western section of the Hexi Corridor , 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) southwest of the city of Jiayuguan in Gansu . The structure lies between two hills, one of which dominates Jiayuguan Pass. The fortress

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576-458: Is part of Shiyang River Basin . The landscape in Gansu is very mountainous in the south and flat in the north. The mountains in the south are part of the Qilian Mountains , while the far western Altyn-Tagh contains the province's highest point, at 5,830 metres (19,130 ft). A natural land passage known as Hexi Corridor , stretching some 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) from Lanzhou to

624-484: Is popular among the Han and nine ethnic groups of Gansu. The cuisine of Gansu is based on the staple crops grown there: wheat , barley , millet , beans , and sweet potatoes . Within China, Gansu is known for its lamian (pulled noodles), and Muslim restaurants which feature authentic Gansu cuisine. Religion in Gansu (2012) According to a 2012 survey around 12% of the population of Gansu belongs to organised religions,

672-702: The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Gansu Committee : The Secretary of the CCP Gansu Committee is the highest-ranking office within Gansu Province. Governors of Gansu : The Governorship of Gansu is the second highest-ranking official within Gansu, behind the Secretary of the CPC Gansu Committee. The governor is responsible for all issues related to economics , personnel , political initiatives,

720-561: The Jade Gate , is situated within the province. It is bound from north by the Gobi Desert and Qilian Mountains from the south. Gansu generally has a semi-arid to arid continental climate ( Köppen BSk or BWk ) with warm to hot summers and cold to very cold winters, although diurnal temperature ranges are often so large that maxima remain above 0 °C (32 °F) even in winter. However, due to extreme altitude, some areas of Gansu exhibit

768-566: The Jiayuguan Jiuquan Airport that offers direct air services to Xi'an on Shanghai Airlines and Beijing on Air China . Jiayuguan has a cool arid climate ( Köppen BWk ), in common with most of northwestern China. Summers feature pleasant mornings and very warm afternoons, whilst winters are freezing to frigid though with essentially no snow due to the extreme aridity produced by the Siberian High . Gansu Gansu

816-583: The Maijishan Grottoes . Dunhuang was a major centre of Buddhism in the Middle Ages . Jiayu Pass Jiayu Pass or Jiayuguan ( simplified Chinese : 嘉峪关 ; traditional Chinese : 嘉峪關 ; pinyin : Jiāyù Guān ) is the first frontier fortress at the west end of the Ming dynasty Great Wall , near the city of Jiayuguan in Gansu province. Along with Juyong Pass and Shanhai Pass , it

864-822: The Uyghur Khaganate , a Buddhist Yugur (Uyghur) state called the Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom was established by migrating Uyghurs from the khaganate in part of Gansu that lasted from 848 to 1036   AD. Along the Silk Road , Gansu was an economically important province, as well as a cultural transmission path. Temples and Buddhist grottoes such as those at Mogao Caves ('Caves of the Thousand Buddhas') and Maijishan Caves contain artistically and historically revealing murals . An early form of paper inscribed with Chinese characters and dating to about 8   BC

912-505: The environment and the foreign affairs of the province. The Governor is appointed by the Gansu Provincial People's Congress , which is the province's legislative body. Despite recent growth in Gansu and the booming economy in the rest of China, Gansu is still considered to be one of the poorest provinces in China. For several years, it has ranked as one of the provinces with lowest GDP per capita . Its nominal GDP for 2017

960-769: The geographical centre of China, marked by the Center of the Country Monument at 35°50′40.9″N 103°27′7.5″E  /  35.844694°N 103.452083°E  / 35.844694; 103.452083  ( Geographical centre of China ) . Part of the Gobi Desert is located in Gansu, as well as small parts of the Badain Jaran Desert and the Tengger Desert . The Yellow River gets most of its water from Gansu, flowing straight through Lanzhou. The area around Wuwei

1008-524: The Chinese empire. The city of Jiayuguan , the second most populated city in Gansu, is known for its section of the Great Wall and the Jiayu Pass fortress complex. Gansu is a compound of the names of Ganzhou (now the main urban district and seat of Zhangye ) and Suzhou (an old name and the modern seat of Jiuquan ), formerly the two most important Chinese settlements in the Hexi Corridor . Gansu

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1056-710: The Gate of Sighs. It was a deep archway tunnelled in the thickness of the wall.... Every traveller toward the north-west passed through this gate, and it opened out on that great and always mysterious waste called the Desert of Gobi. The long archway was covered with writings...the work of men of scholarship, who had fallen on an hour of deep distress. Who were then the writers of this Anthology of Grief? Some were heavy-hearted exiles, others were disgraced officials, and some were criminals no longer tolerated within China's borders. Torn from all they loved on earth and banished with dishonoured name to

1104-512: The cradles of ancient Chinese civilisation. In prehistoric times, Gansu was host to Neolithic cultures. The Dadiwan culture , from where archaeologically significant artifacts have been excavated, flourished in the eastern end of Gansu from about 6000   BC to about 3000   BC. The Majiayao culture and part of the Qijia culture took root in Gansu from 3100 BC to 2700 BC and 2400 BC to 1900 BC respectively. The Yuezhi originally lived in

1152-519: The designer gave him a number (99,999). The official questioned his judgment, asking him if that would be enough, so the designer added one brick. When Jiayuguan was finished, there was one brick left over, which was placed loose on one of the gates where it remains today. The structure was built during the early Ming dynasty , sometime around the year 1372. The fortress there was greatly strengthened due to fear of an invasion by Timur , but Timur died of old age while leading an army toward China. Among

1200-763: The dreary regions outside. Amongst those once banished in disgrace was the famous Chinese Opium War Viceroy of Liangguang, Commissioner Lin Zexu . A statue in his honor can today be found in a local park in Ürümqi . More famous in Jiayuguan are the thousands of tombs from the Wei and Western Jin dynasty (266–420) discovered east of the city in recent years. The 700 excavated tombs are famous in China, and replicas or photographs of them can be seen in nearly every major Chinese museum. The bricks deserve their fame; they are both fascinating and charming, depicting such domestic scenes as preparing for

1248-443: The industrial sector contributed the most to Gansu's economy. The most important industries are petrochemicals, non-ferrous metallurgy , machinery and electronics. The province is also an important base for wind and solar power. As a result of environmental protection policies, the industry sector is not growing. The manufacturing sector has been shrinking for several years and has low investment numbers. According to some sources,

1296-484: The largest groups being Buddhists with 8.2%, followed by Muslims with 3.4%, Protestants with 0.4% and Catholics with 0.1%. Around 88% of the population may be either irreligious or involved in Chinese folk religion , Buddhism, Confucianism , Taoism, and folk religious sects . Muslim restaurants are common, and feature typical Chinese dishes, but without any pork products, and instead an emphasis on lamb and mutton . Gansu has many works of Buddhist art, including

1344-571: The locally sourced petrol from the Yumen Laojunmiao oil wells beginning in the summer of 1939, producing 250,000 tons of crude oil in those war years. Lanzhou and Lhasa were designated to be recipients of a new railway. The Kuomintang Islamic insurgency in China (1950–1958) was a prolongation of the Chinese Civil War in several provinces including Gansu. Gansu has an area of 454,000 square kilometres (175,000 sq mi), and

1392-423: The passes on the Great Wall, Jiayuguan is the most intact surviving ancient military building. The pass is also known by the name the "First and Greatest Pass Under Heaven" ( 天下第一雄關 ), which is not to be confused with the "First Pass Under Heaven" ( 天下第一關 ), a name for Shanhaiguan at the east end of the Great Wall near Qinhuangdao , Hebei . The pass was a key waypoint of the ancient Silk Road . Jiayuguan has

1440-508: The poisoning of many acres of agricultural land. The extent and nature of the heavy metal pollution is considered a state secret. The industrial sector in Gansu was developed after completion of the Longhai railway in 1953 and blueprinted in the first five-year plan of China . It was a major recipient of China's investment in industrial capacity during the Third Front campaign. Until 2014,

1488-731: The present-day area of Ningxia in 1920, and another with a magnitude of 7.6 killed 275 in 1932. The Muslim Conflict in Gansu (1927–1930) was a conflict against the Guominjun . While the Muslim General Ma Hongbin was acting chairman of the province, Muslim General Ma Buqing was in virtual control of Gansu in 1940. Liangzhou District in Wuwei was previously his headquarters in Gansu, where he controlled 15 million Muslims. Xinjiang came under Kuomintang (Nationalist) control after their soldiers entered via Gansu. Gansu's Tienshui

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1536-900: The province is also a center of China's nuclear industry. As stipulated in the country's 12th Five Year Plan, the local government of Gansu hopes to grow the province's GDP by 10% annually by focusing investments on five pillar industries: renewable energy, coal, chemicals, nonferrous metals, pharmaceuticals and services. A large part of Gansu's economy is based on mining and the extraction of minerals , especially rare earth elements . The province has significant deposits of antimony , chromium , coal , cobalt , copper , fluorite , gypsum , iridium , iron , lead , limestone , mercury , mirabilite , nickel , crude oil , platinum , troilite , tungsten , and zinc among others. The oil fields at Yumen and Changqing are considered significant. Gansu has China's largest nickel deposits accounting for over 90% of China's total nickel reserves. Since 2014,

1584-578: The province is also spelled in Mandarin Phonetic Symbols II (1986) and Tongyong Pinyin (2002) adopted by Taiwan , who would later adopt Hanyu Pinyin in 2009. Gansu's name is a compound name first used during the Song dynasty . It is a combination of the names of two prefectures ( 州 ) in the Sui and Tang dynasty : Gan (around Zhangye ) and Su (around Jiuquan ). Its eastern part forms part of one of

1632-485: The rest of the province is rapidly losing population. Most of the inhabitants of Gansu speak dialects of Northern Mandarin Chinese . On the border areas of Gansu one might encounter Tu , Tibetan , Mongolian , Uyghur and the Kazakh language . Most of the minorities also speak Chinese. A unique variety of Chinese folk music popularly identified with the local peoples of Gansu include the "Hua'er" (flowery melodies) , and

1680-617: The service sector is the largest economic sector of Gansu. Tourism is a sector that is becoming of increased importance. The following economic and technological zones are situated in Gansu: Gansu province is home to a little more than 25 million people. As of 2020, 47.7% of the population was rural, but much relocation in recent years has reduced this. Gansu is 89.4% Han and also has Hui , Tibetan , Dongxiang , Tu , Uyghurs , Yugur , Bonan , Mongolian , Salar and Kazakh minorities. Gansu province's community of Chinese Hui Muslims

1728-539: The vast majority of its land is more than 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) above sea level . It lies between the Tibetan Plateau and the Loess Plateau , bordering Mongolia ( Govi-Altai Province ) to the northwest, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia to the north, Shaanxi to the east, Sichuan to the south, and Xinjiang to the west. The Yellow River passes through the southern part of the province. The province contains

1776-590: The very western part of Gansu until they were forced to emigrate by the Xiongnu around 177 BC. The State of Qin , known in China as the founding state of the Chinese empire , grew out from the southeastern part of Gansu, specifically the Tianshui area. The Qin name is believed to have originated, in part, from the area. Qin tombs and artifacts have been excavated from Fangmatan near Tianshui, including one 2200-year-old map of Guixian County . In imperial times, Gansu

1824-612: The west of Yumenguan and the Qilian Mountains , at the northwestern end of the province, the Yuezhi , Wusun , and other nomadic tribes dwelt ( Shiji 123), occasionally figuring in regional imperial Chinese geopolitics . By the Qingshui treaty, concluded in 823 between the Tibetan Empire and the Tang dynasty, China lost much of western Gansu province for a significant period. After the fall of

1872-486: The west, Sichuan to the south and Shaanxi to the east. The Yellow River passes through the southern part of the province. Part of Gansu's territory is located in the Gobi Desert . The Qilian mountains are located in the south of the Province. Gansu has a population of 26 million, ranking 22nd in China . Its population is mostly Han , along with Hui , Dongxiang and Tibetan minorities. The most common language

1920-453: Was about 767.7 billion yuan (US$ 113.70 billion) and per capita of 29,326 RMB (US$ 4,343). The province also has a large difference in wealth between regions and urban versus rural areas. The poorest areas are Dingxi, Longnan, Gannan and Linxia. According to analysts, the local economy failed to gather momentum while other provinces did manage to increase their economic growth. Due to poor natural conditions such as aridness, Gansu

1968-482: Was an important strategic outpost and communications link for the Chinese empire, as the Hexi Corridor runs along the "neck" of the province. The Han dynasty extended the Great Wall across this corridor, building the strategic Yumenguan (Jade Gate Pass, near Dunhuang ) and Yangguan fort towns along it. Remains of the wall and the towns can be found there. The Ming dynasty built the Jiayuguan outpost in Gansu. To

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2016-463: Was another Dungan revolt from 1895 to 1896 . As a result of frequent earthquakes, droughts and famines, the economic progress of Gansu was significantly slower than that of other provinces of China until recently. Based on the area's abundant mineral resources it has begun developing into a vital industrial center. An earthquake in Gansu at 8.6 on the Richter scale killed around 180,000 people mostly in

2064-414: Was assigned to Jiayuguan City, mining and mineral processing are the primary industries of the city. In 1971, Jiayuguan City was changed to a prefecture-level city. By area, it is by far the smallest prefecture-level division of Gansu. It is also one of the four prefecture-level cities which has no districts. The fortress at Jiayuguan is situated at the end of the portion of the Great Wall of China which

2112-515: Was bolstered by Hui Muslims resettled from Shaanxi province during the Dungan Revolt . Gansu is also a historical home, along with Shaanxi , of the dialect of the Dungans , who migrated to Central Asia . The southwestern corner of Gansu is home to a large ethnic Tibetan population. Modern Gansu is dominated by Lanzhou city and Linxia Hui prefectures, their growth hides the stark fact that much of

2160-575: Was built by the Ming Dynasty , in the 14th century. As 2019, Jiayuguan City is underdivided 3 towns. Jiayuguan is divided into 2 subdistricts and 3 towns. Jiayuguan is served by China National Highway 312 , and the Lanzhou-Xinjiang and Jiayuguan-Ceke Railways. A 69-km-long branch railway, the Jiajing Railway ( 嘉镜铁路 ), runs from Jiayuguan to Jingtieshan ( 镜铁山矿区 ). Jiayuguan is served by

2208-430: Was built near an oasis that was then on the extreme western edge of China. The fort is trapezoid-shaped with a perimeter of 733 metres (2,405 ft) and an area of more than 33,500 square metres (361,000 sq ft). The length of the wall is 733 metres (2,405 ft) and the height is 11 metres (36 ft). There are two gates: one on the east side of the pass and the other on the west side. On each gate there

2256-635: Was discovered at the site of a Western Han garrison near the Yumen pass in August 2006. The Xixia or Western Xia dynasty controlled much of Gansu as well as Ningxia . The province was also the origin of the Dungan Revolt of 1862–77. Among the Qing forces were Muslim generals, including Ma Zhan'ao and Ma Anliang , who helped the Qing crush the rebel Muslims. The revolt had spread into Gansu from neighbouring Qinghai. There

2304-634: Was the site of a Japanese-Chinese warplane fight. Gansu was vulnerable to Soviet penetration via Xinjiang. Gansu was a passageway for Soviet war supplies for the Republic of China during the Second Sino-Japanese War . Lanzhou was a destination point via a road coming from Dihua (Ürümqi). The Gonxingdun Aerodrome was one of several air bases where the Chinese Air Force operated in defense of Gansu. Gansu provided wartime China with most of

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