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Top Attractions in Gansu

Mogao Caves

The Mogao Caves or Mogao Grottoes, also known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas, form a system of 492 temples 25 km southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis strategically located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu province, China. The caves may also be known as the Dunhuang Caves, however, this term is also used as a collective term to include other Buddhist cave sites in the Dunhuang area, such as the Western Thousand Buddha Caves, and the Yulin Caves farther away. The caves contain some of the finest examples of Buddhist art spanning a period of 1,000 years. The first caves were dug out in 366 CE as places of Buddhist meditation and worship. The Mogao Caves are the best known of the Chinese Buddhist grottoes and, along with Longmen Grottoes and Yungang Grottoes, are one of the three famous ancient Buddhist sculptural sites of China. An important cache of documents was discovered in 1900 in the so-called "Library Cave," which had been walled-up in the 11th century. The content of the library was dispersed around the world, and the largest collections are now found in Beijing, London, Paris and Berlin, and the International Dunhuang Project exists to coordinate and collect scholarly work on the Dunhuang manuscripts and other material. The caves themselves are now a popular tourist destination, with a number open for visiting.

Western Thousand Buddha Caves

The Western Thousand Buddha Caves is a Buddhist cave temple site in Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China. The site is located approximately 35 km southwest of the urban centre and about the same distance from the Yangguan Pass; the area served as a staging post for travellers on the Silk Road. It is the western counterpart of the Mogao Caves, also known as the "Caves of the Thousand Buddhas" after the founding monk Yuezuns vision in 366 of "golden radiance in the form of a thousand Buddhas". The caves were excavated from the cliff that runs along the north bank of the Dang River. A number have been lost to floods and collapse; some forty are still extant. Twenty-two decorated caves house 34 polychrome statues and 800 m2 of wall paintings, dating from the Northern Wei to the late-Yuan and early-Ming Dynasties . The site was included within the 1961 designation of the Mogao Caves as a Major National Historical and Cultural Site.

Bingling Temple

The Bingling Temple is a series of grottoes filled with Buddhist sculpture carved into natural caves and caverns in a canyon along the Yellow River. It lies just north of where the Yellow River empties into the Liujiaxia Reservoir. Administratively, the site is in Yongjing County of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu province, some 100 km southeast of Lanzhou. The caves were a work in progress for more than a millennium. The first grotto was begun around 420 CE at the end of the Western Qin kingdom. Work continued and more grottoes were added during the Wei, Sui, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. The style of each grottoe can easily be connected to the typical artwork from its corresponding dynasty. The Bingling Temple is both stylistically and geographically a midpoint between the monumental Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan and the Buddhist Grottoes of central China, Yungang Grottoes near Datong and Longmen Grottoes near Luoyang. Over the centuries, earthquakes, erosion, and looters have damaged or destroyed many of the caves and the artistic treasures within. Altogether there are 183 caves, 694 stone statues, and 82 clay sculptures that remain. The relief sculpture and caves filled with buddhas and frescoes line the northern side of the canyon for about 200 meters. Each cave is like a miniature temple filled with Buddhist imagery. These caves culminate at a large natural cavern where wooden walkways precariously wind up the rock face to hidden cliff-side caves and the giant Maitreya Buddha that stands more than 27 meters, or almost 100 feet, tall.

Yang Pass

Yangguan, or Yangguan Pass is a mountain pass that was fortified by Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty around 120 BC and used as an outpost in the colonial dominions adjacent to ancient China. It is located approximately 70 kilometres southwest of Dunhuang, in the Gansu territory to the west of the Shaanxi province in the far Northwest China, which was in ancient times the westernmost administrative center of China. It was established as a frontier defense post, as well as a developed place in China's remote western frontier; Emperor Wu encouraged Chinese to settle there. Today Yangguan is located in Nanhu Village, along the Hexi Corridor. Yangguan is one of China's two most important western passes, the other being Yumenguan. In Chinese, yang means "sunny", but it can also be used to mean "south" . Yangguan was therefore so-named because it lies to the south of the Yumenguan Pass. It was an important landmark on the Silk Road. The fortress at Yangguan however had fallen into ruin by around 900 AD.

Yumen Pass

Yumen Pass or Jade Gate or Pass of the Jade Gate, is the name of a pass located west of Dunhuang in today's Gansu Province of China. In ancient times, this was a pass through which the Silk Road passed, and was the one road connecting Central Asia and China, the former called the Western Regions. Just to the south was the Yangguan pass, which was also an important point on the Silk Road. Although the Chinese guan is usually translated simply as "pass", its more specific meaning is a "frontier pass" to distinguish it from an ordinary pass through the mountains. Yumen guan 玉門關 and Yang guan 陽關 are derived from: yu 玉 = 'jade' + men 門 = 'gate', 'door'; and yang 陽 = 'sunny side', 'south side of a hill', 'north side of a river,' and guan 關 = ‘frontier-passes’. These were the two most famous passes leading to the north and west from Chinese territory. During the Early Han, "... a defensive line was established from Jiuquan in the Gansu Corridor west to the Jade Gate Pass at its end." It is not to be confused with the city Yumen in Gansu, China. Although both are within the same Jiuquan "prefecture-level city" of Gansu province, Yumen Pass is located some 400 km to the west of its namesake city.

Silk Route Museum

The Silk Route Museum is located in Jiuquan, Gansu Province along the Silk Road, a trading route connecting Rome to China, used by Marco Polo. It is also built over the tomb of the Xiliang King in Gansu Province. Founded by Mei Ping Wu and staffed by volunteers, the museum is dedicated to the fostering of an enhanced understanding between East and West. The museum opened in October 2009 and is dedicated to the history of the ancient Silk Road. The museum holds in trust a collection of rare and historical artifacts dating to the time of the original Silk Road. The museum houses an exhibition area of over 100,000 square feet which includes over 35,000 pieces from the Jade Road collection, a substantial subterranean art gallery, the Wei Jin Tombs, as well as historical sites from the Hexi Corridor of ancient China.

White Horse Pagoda

The White Horse Pagoda, in Dunhuang, Gansu, China, was built to commemorate Tianliu, the white horse of the Buddhist monk Kumārajīva, which carried Buddhist scriptures all the way from Kucha to Dunhuang in China c. 384 CE. Kumārajīva, a revered monk and translator, was born in the oasis city-state of Kucha, the son of a Kuchean princess and a Kashmiri Brahmin. The horse found passages through high mountains, across raging rivers, and water when needed. According to legend, when Kumārajīva reached the ancient city of Shazhou he stopped for several days at Puguang Temple to preach the scriptures. Just before he was due to leave, Tianliu became sick and died shortly after. He was devastated by the death of his faithful companion and built this unique nine-storied pagoda containing relics of the Buddha: "Kumārajīva was very sad. He erected a sacrificial altar for the white horse and performed Buddhist rites at it for nine days. In the courtyard of Puguang Temple he built the White Horse Pagoda." The Diamond Sutra, one of the scriptures Kumārajīva brought to China, was first translated into Chinese by him in 402. It became "the most widely-read, recited and copied version of the sutra in China, in spite of the fact that later translations were made by several others, including the pilgrim monk Xuanzang." A printed copy of this sutra, found at the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang in 1910, is dated in the year 868 CE, making it the worlds oldest dated printed book. It has recently been restored at the British Library, an exacting process that took seven years. The pagoda is located 2 km south of the centre of Dunhuang city. It was repaired in the Daoguang era and again in 1992. It is 12 metres high and 7 metres in diameter and consists of 9 levels in total. The exterior is built of adobe bricks and is filled with grass and mud mixed with lime. The base is in the form of an eight-spoked wheel, the 1st level has four sides, while levels 2 to 4 have folding corners, the 5th level is decorated with upturned lotuses, the 6th is in the shape of an overturned bowl, the 7th level is wheel-shaped, while the 8th level has a hexagonal plate at the top of the pagoda with big wind-bells hanging on every corner. Above that are three metal balls surmounted by a trident. Local people say the chime of the bells are an echo of the neighing of the horse.

Liujiaxia Reservoir

The Liujiaxia Reservoir is a reservoir in Chinas Gansu Province, formed by the Liujiaxia Dam on the Yellow River. It occupies over 130 km2, and is located entirely within Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture. The reservoirs shores belong to the prefectures Yongjing County, Dongxiang Autonomous County, Linxia County, and Jishishan Bonan, Dongxiang and Salar Autonomous County . The Daxia River and the Tao River flow into the reservoirs, forming wide bays. The water level in Liujiaxia Reservoir is usually reported as 1,735 m above the sea level, but in practice it varies significantly, in accordance with the water flow and human needs. The initial capacity of the reservoir was 5.7 km3, but after 10 years it lost 10% of its capacity due to silting, and after 17 years, 17.4%. This silting rate is considered quite low, compared to other reservoirs on the Yellow River, such as the narrow Yanguoxia Reservoir just downstream, which lost 71.3% of its storage capacity between 1958 and 1964, or Sanmenxia Reservoir, which lost 96% of its storage capacity to sedimentation in just 4 years. The reservoir usually does not freeze over in winter, but during the unusually cold weather in early 2008 over half of its surface froze, which necessitated taking measures to protect the turbines of the hydroelectric plant from floating ice. A variety of watercraft operate on the reservoir. Vehicle ferries run frequently across the reservoir between docks in Linxia County and Yongjing County, providing a shorter and more pleasant route for travel between Linxia City and Liujiaxia Town than China National Highway 213 does. Recreational vessels and shuttle boats to Bingling Temple operate from a number of docks, in particular the one in Liujiaxia Town near the dam.

Crescent Lake

Yueyaquan is a crescent-shaped lake in an oasis, 6 km south of the city of Dunhuang in Gansu Province, China. It was named Yueyaquan in the Qing Dynasty. Mildred Cable Francesca French visited the lake during their travels in the region and recorded their impressions in their book The Gobi Desert, "All around us we saw tier on tier of lofty sand-hills, giving the lie to our quest, yet when, with a final desperate effort, we hoisted ourselves over the last ridge and looked down on what lay beyond, we saw the lake below, and its beauty was entrancing." According to measurements made in 1960, the average depth of the lake was 4 to 5 meters, with a maximum depth of 7.5 metres . In the following 40 years, the depth of the lake continually declined. In the early 1990s, its area had shrunk to only 1.37 acres with an average depth of 0.9 meter . In 2006, the local government with help of the central government started to fill the lake and restore its depth; its depth and size have been growing yearly since then. The lake and the surrounding deserts are very popular with tourists, who are offered camel and 4x4 rides.

Maijishan Grottoes

The Maijishan Grottoes are a series of 194 caves cut in the side of the hill of Majishan in Tianshui, Gansu Province, northwest China. This example of rock cut architecture contains over 7,200 Buddhist sculptures and over 1,000 square meters of murals. Construction began in the Later Qin era . They were first properly explored in 1952-53 by a team of Chinese archeologists from Beijing, who devised the numbering system still in use today. Caves #1-50 are on the western cliff face; caves #51-191 on the eastern cliff face. They were later photographed by Michael Sullivan and Dominique Darbois, who subsequently published the primary English-language work on the caves noted in the footnotes below. The name Maijishan consists of three Chinese words that literally translate as "Wheatstack Mountain", but because the term "mai" is the generic term in Chinese used for most grains, one also sees such translations as "Corn rick mountain". Mai means "grain". Ji means "stack" or "mound". Shan means "mountain". The mountain is formed of purplish red sandstone. They are just one of the string of Buddhist grottoes that can be found in this area of northwest China, lying more or less on the main routes connecting China and Central Asia.

Lanzhou University

Lanzhou University is a major research university in Lanzhou, Gansu Province, China. Founded in 1909, it is one of the key universities under China's Ministry of Education (Project 985 & Project 211). It provides programs for undergraduate, graduate students on four campuses—three in Lanzhou city centre and one in Yuzhong County, about 30 miles away from the main campus. Total enrolment is approximately 20,000. Undergraduate students study at the Yuzhong campus. There are 6 National Bases for the Training of Researching and Teaching personnel for Fundamental Disciplines. The University operates an additional 35 institutes along with 1 national key Laboratory of the Applied Organic and 3 key laboratories of Arid and Grassland Ecology, West China Environment, Magnetism and Magnetic Materials of the Ministry of Education, a key laboratory of Grassland Agro-ecosystem of the Ministry of Agriculture. Lanzhou University was one of the first universities entitled to enroll Bachelor Master’s and Doctoral degree candidates in 1981. Lanzhou University is one of the top ten universities in contributions to academic publications in international journals frequently cited by ongoing research from around the world.

Dunhuang

Dunhuang is a county-level city in northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. The 2000 Chinese census reported a population of 187,578 in this city. Dunhuang was a major stop on the ancient Silk Road and is best known for the nearby Mogao Caves. It has also been known at times as Shazhou and, in Uyghur, Dukhan. Dunhuang is situated in a rich oasis containing Crescent Lake and Mingsha Shan (鸣沙山, meaning "Singing-Sand Mountain"), named after the sound of the wind whipping off the dunes, the singing sand phenomenon. Dunhuang commands a strategic position at the crossroads of the ancient Southern Silk Route and the main road leading from India via Lhasa to Mongolia and Southern Siberia, as well as controlling the entrance to the narrow Hexi Corridor, which led straight to the heart of the north Chinese plains and the ancient capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang. Administratively, the county-level city of Dunhuang is part of the prefecture-level city of Jiuquan.

Liujiaxia Dam

The Liujiaxia Dam is a major hydroelectric dam on the upper Yellow River, in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture of China's Gansu Province. The dam and its hydroelectric facility are located in Liujia Gorge, or Liujiaxia (literally, "Liu Family's Gorge"), just downstream from where the Tao River flows into the Yellow River. The site is on the eastern outskirts of Liujiaxia Town. Since Liujiaxia Town is the county seat of Yongjing County, it is often marked on less detailed maps simply as "Yongjing". The Liujiaxia Reservoir (simplified Chinese: 刘家峡水库; traditional Chinese: 劉家峽水庫; pinyin: Liújiāxiá Shuǐkù) formed by the dam is the largest body of water within Gansu. The primary purpose of the dam is generating electricity; in addition, it is used for flood control, irrigation, and "ice flood prevention". The dam's location is about 70 km (43 mi) west-south-west (or 100 km (62 mi) upstream) from the provincial capital Lanzhou. Liujiaxia Dam is a concrete gravity dam 147 m (482 ft) high and 16 metres (52 ft) wide on top. The main section of the dam is 204 m (669 ft) long; including auxiliary sections on both sides, the length totals 840 m (2,756 ft). The power plant has 5 generators with the total installed capacity of 1,225 MW. When it became fully operational in 1974, it became the country's largest hydroelectric power plant, and remained so until the 1980s.

Longshou II Dam

The Longshou II Dam, also referred to as Longshou No. 2, is a concrete-face rock-fill dam on the Heihe River, located 35 km southwest of Zhangye in Gansu Province, China. It is part of the Gansu Heihe Rural Hydropower Development and supports a 157 MW power station. The dam's first feasibility study was carried out in 2000 and river diversion construction began in December 2001. In June 2002, the river was diverted and in September that year, filling of the dam's body began. On 17 August 2004, the first generator was operational with the rest by the end of the year. The 146.5 m high dam withholds a reservoir with a capacity of 86,200,000 m3 . It's spillway is located on the right bank and is a controlled chute type with a discharge capacity of 2,696 m3/s . Water is delivered to the dam's power station downstream via a 1.7 km long tunnel. The dam is located upstream of the Longshou I Dam, an 80 m tall double-curvature arch dam with an installed capacity of 52 MW. Upstream is the Xiaogushan Dam, a gravity dam which diverts water to a 102 MW power station.
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