China Information

Business, Travel and cultural Information from across China
Helping you find out more about China

China Information » Places in China » Gansu Province

Places in China: Gansu Province

This wild and quite remote province was at the heart of the Silk Road so the rich historical value of the Gansu Province is tremendous. It is at the end of the Great Wall at the fortress of Jiayuguan.

The ethnically-mixed population is rather sparse due to the general uninhabitable nature of the land in the province. Most of the 26,000,000 people in this large province live in or near the capital city of Lanzhou or the industrial city of Tianshui. The land area of Gansu Province is 530,000 square kilometres. The low population density of 57.7 persons per square kilometre is due to the large size of the province coupled with the fact that the area is not an easy place in which to settle. The altitude of most of the province is above one kilometre.

The northern border of the province meets the western edge of the country's westernmost province, Xinjiang. The province extends from the Yellow River in the north through deserts and mountains. In the south, its borders reach the Tibetan Plateau. The province is bisected by the Hexi Corridor, an area which provided the only trading route between the west and China. Although this Corridor has been important for many centuries in the past, it is important even today since the only east-west rail link goes over this narrow pass.

Gansu lies between two plateaus, the Loess Plateau and the Tibetan Plateau. The great Huang He River gets most of its water from runoff of these plateaus. Flat in the north and mountainous in the south, Gansu also includes a portion of the Gobi Desert in the West.

A number of religious sites from the past were in Gansu Province. These include remains of Muslim settlements scattered over the province. Also, an interesting Tibetan monastery exists at Labrang. Some of the finest examples of Buddhist art have been discovered in the large Mogao Cave complex near to Dunhuang.

There have been several natural disasters which have hindered progress in Gansu Province. These include frequent famines, droughts and earthquakes. However, the discovery of minerals has helped parts of the province to industrialize. This is especially true of the capital city of Lanzhou, where most of the industrial income comes from mining and extraction of crude oil, tungsten, iron and platinum. This city also has herbs which are used in many Chinese medicines.

Visitors to Gansu should expect frequent wet weather. In the summer, there may be long periods of dry weather with beautiful sunshine, but unexpected rains often show up as well.