Yumen Pass (; Uyghur: قاش قوۋۇق), or Jade Gate or Pass of the Jade Gate, is the name of a

pass Pass, PASS, The Pass or Passed may refer to: Places *Pass, County Meath, a townland in Ireland * Pass, Poland, a village in Poland * Pass, an alternate term for a number of straits: see List of straits *Mountain pass, a lower place in a mounta ...

of the

Great Wall The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand Li (unit), ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against Eurasian noma ...

located west of

Dunhuang Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major s ...

in today's

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibe ...

Province of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. During the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by th ...

(202 BC – AD 220), this was a pass through which the

Silk Road The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and rel ...

passed, and was the one road connecting

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...

with

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...

(China), the former called the

Western Regions The Western Regions or Xiyu (Hsi-yü; ) was a historical name specified in the Chinese chronicles between the 3rd century BC to the 8th century AD that referred to the regions west of Yumen Pass, most often Central Asia or sometimes more sp ...

. Just to the south was the Yangguan pass, which was also an important point on the Silk Road. These passes, along with other sites along the

, were inscribed in 2014 on the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

World Heritage List A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...

as the Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor World Heritage Site. The pass is at an elevation of 1400 meters.

Etymology

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’. It is not to be confused with the city Yumen (玉門, literally ''Jade Gate'') in Gansu, China. Although both are within the same

Jiuquan Jiuquan, formerly known as Suzhou, is a prefecture-level city in the northwesternmost part of Gansu Province in the People's Republic of China. It is more than wide from east to west, occupying , although its built-up area is mostly located in i ...

prefecture-level city A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure. During the Republican era, many of Chi ...

" (a multi-county administrative unit) of Gansu province, Yumen Pass is located some 400 km to the west of its namesake city.

History

Yumen Pass was one of the most famous passes leading to the north and west from Chinese territory. During the Early Han, "... a defensive line was established from Jiuquan ('Wine Springs') in the ''Gansu'' Corridor west to the Jade Gate Pass at its end."

Footnotes

References

* * *
Yuan Julian Chen, 春風玉門，《福建文學》Fujian Literature，2014年第五期，頁72-76.
* {{Gansu topics Great Wall of China Mountain passes of China Geography of Gansu Sites along the Silk Road Major National Historical and Cultural Sites in Gansu Han dynasty architecture