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Zhangye
Zhangye ( zh, s=张掖, t=張掖, p=Zhāngyè), Postal Map Romanization, formerly romanization of Chinese, romanized as Changyeh and also formerly known as Kanchow, is a prefecture-level city in central Gansu provinces of China, Province in the China, People's Republic of China. It borders Inner Mongolia on the north and Qinghai on the south. Its central district (PRC), district is Ganzhou District, Ganzhou, formerly a city of the Western Xia and one of the most important outposts of western China. Name Although Zhangye is the oldest recorded name, the city was also formerly also known as Ganzhou, named after the sweet waters ( zh, c=甘泉 , p=Gānquán) of its oasis. An alternative theory states that "Gan" was from the Ganjun Hill ( zh, labels=no, s=绀峻山) near the city. The name of Gansu, province came from a contraction of Ganzhou and Suzhou (modern Jiuquan). The name appears in Marco Polo's ''Il Milione, Travels'' under the name Campichu. Zhangye Commandery (China), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ganzhou District
Ganzhou District, formerly the separate city of Ganzhou or Kanchow, is a district in and the seat of the prefecture-level city of Zhangye in Gansu Province, China, bordering Inner Mongolia to the north and northeast. Ganzhou was an important outpost in western China and, along with Suzhou (now the central district of Jiuquan), it is the namesake of the province. As a settlement, it is now known as Zhangye after the prefecture it heads. The name "Gansu" originates as a combination of Ganzhou and Suzhou (). History Administrative divisions Ganzhou District is divided to 5 subdistricts, 13 towns, 4 townships, 1 ethnic township and 1 other. ;Subdistricts ;Towns ;Townships ;Ethnic townships * Pingshanhu Mongol Township ()(, ) ;Others * Zhangye Economic and Technological Development Zone () See also * List of administrative divisions of Gansu Gansu, a province of the People's Republic of China, is made up of the following administrative divisions. Administrative divisions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gansu
Gansu is a provinces of China, 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 , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Tibetan and Loess Plateau, Loess plateaus and borders Mongolia's Govi-Altai Province, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to 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, Qilian mountains are located in the south of the Province. Gansu has a population of 26 million, ranking List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, 22nd in China. Its population is mostly Han Chinese, Han, along with Hui people, Hui, Dongxiangs, Dongxiang and Tibetan people, Tibetan minorities. The most common language is Mandarin. Gansu is among the poorest administrative divi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dafo Temple, Zhangye
The Dafo Temple or Great Buddha Temple () is a Buddhist temple in Zhangye, Gansu, China, notable for its gigantic reclining Buddha statue made around 1100 during the Western Xia period, which is thirty-five metres long. After a restoration project in 2005–06, the Temple now attracts thousands of visitors. It has had several names over the centuries, including the "Kasyapa Buddha Temple" (), the "Bojue Temple" (), the "Hongren Temple" (), and the "Reclining Buddha Temple" (). The present name of "Dafo" means "Great Buddha". History The temple was built around the beginning of the 12th century, during the Western Xia (1038–1227) period. In 1028, the Tibeto-Burman languages, Tibeto-Burman speaking Tangut people took over Zhangye (then known as Ganzhou) from the Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom. A few years later they founded the Western Xia and controlled the entirety of the Hexi Corridor. To strengthen their hold over the area, the Xia built temples and ordered the translation of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wuwei, Gansu
Wuwei ( zh, c=武威 , p=Wǔwēi) is a prefecture-level city in northwest central Gansu province. In the north it borders Inner Mongolia, in the southwest, Qinghai. Its central location between three western capitals, Lanzhou, Xining, and Yinchuan makes it an important business and transportation hub for the area. Because of its position along the Hexi Corridor, historically the only route from central China to western China and the rest of Central Asia, many major railroads and national highways pass through Wuwei. History In ancient times, Wuwei was called Liangzhou (—the name retained by today's Wuwei's central urban district) and is the eastern terminus of the Hexi Corridor. People began settling here about 5,000 years ago. It was a key link for the Northern Silk Road, and a number of important archaeological finds were uncovered from Wuwei, including ancient copper carts with stone animals. The motifs and types of objects in the Wuwei graves, as well as their ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hexi Corridor
The Hexi Corridor ( ), also known as the Gansu Corridor, is an important historical region located in the modern western Gansu province of China. It refers to a narrow stretch of traversable and relatively arable plain west of the Yellow River's Ordos Loop (hence the name ''Hexi'', meaning 'west of the river'), flanked between the much more elevated and inhospitable terrains of the Mongolian and Tibetan Plateaus. As part of the Northern Silk Road, running northwest from the western section of the Ordos Loop between Yinchuan and Lanzhou, the Hexi Corridor was the most important trade route in Northwest China. It linked China ''proper'' to the historic Western Regions for traders and military incursions into Central Asia. It is a string of oases along the northern edges of the Qilian Mountains and Altyn-Tagh, with the high and desolate Tibetan Plateau further to the south. To the north are the Longshou, Heli and Mazong Mountains separating it from the arid Badain Jaran D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reclining Buddha
A reclining Buddha is an image that represents Buddha lying down and is a major iconographic theme in Buddhist art. It represents the historical Buddha during his last illness, about to enter the parinirvana. He is lying on his right side, his head resting on a cushion or relying on his right elbow, supporting his head with his hand. This pattern seems to have emerged at the same time as other representations of the Buddha in the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara. In Thai art For Thai Buddha attitudes (; ), the reclining Buddha (; ) can refer to three different episodes, whilst the attribute of each remains unclear. * Nirvana attitude (; ) * Teaching the Rahu Asurin attitude (; ) * Sleeping attitude (; ) Notable examples Burma: * Win Sein Tawya Buddha ( Mawlamyaing) - * Thanboddhay Pagoda (Monywa) - * Myathalyaung Buddha ( Bago) - * Lawka Tharahpu Buddha (Dawei) - * Chaukhtatgyi Buddha Temple (Yangon) - * Shwethalyaung Buddha ( Bago) - * Manuha Temple (Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Xia
The Western Xia or the Xi Xia ( zh, c=, w=Hsi1 Hsia4, p=Xī Xià), officially the Great Xia ( zh, c=大夏, w=Ta4 Hsia4, p=Dà Xià, labels=no), also known as the Tangut Empire, and known as Stein (1972), pp. 70–71. to the Tanguts and Tibetans, was a Tangut-led imperial dynasty of China that existed from 1038 to 1227. At its peak, the dynasty ruled over modern-day northwestern China, including parts of Ningxia, Gansu, eastern Qinghai, northern Shaanxi, northeastern Xinjiang, and southwest Inner Mongolia, and southernmost Outer Mongolia, measuring about . The capital of Western Xia was Xingqing (modern Yinchuan); another major Xia city and archaeological site is Khara-Khoto. Western Xia was annihilated by the Mongols in 1227. Most of its written records and architecture were destroyed, so the founders and history of the empire remained obscure until 20th-century research in China and the West. Today the Tangut language and its unique script are extinct, only ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 its Suzhou District. Name The city was formerly known as Fulu, which became known as Suzhou (Suchow, Su-chow, &c.) after it became the seat of Su Prefecture under the Sui.485 As the seat of , it eventually became known by that name in turn. The name Jiuquan —" spring(s)" — ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
District (PRC)
The term ''district'', in the context of China, is used to refer to several unrelated political divisions in both ancient and modern China. In the modern context, district ( zh, s=区, labels=no), formally city-governed district, city-controlled district, or municipal district ( zh, s=市辖区, links=no, labels=no), are subdivisions of a municipality or a prefecture-level city. The rank of a district derives from the rank of its city. Districts of a municipality are prefecture-level; districts of a sub-provincial city are sub-prefecture-level; and districts of a prefecture-level city are county-level. The term was also formerly used to refer to obsolete county-controlled districts (also known as district public office). However, if the word ''district'' is encountered in the context of ancient Chinese history, then it is a translation for ''xian'', another type of administrative division in China. Before the 1980s, cities in China were administrative divisions contai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Regions
The Western Regions or Xiyu (Hsi-yü; ) was a historical name specified in Ancient Chinese chronicles between the 3rd century BC to the 8th century AD that referred to the regions west of the Yumen Pass, most often the Tarim Basin in present-day southern Xinjiang (also known as Altishahr) and Central Asia (specifically the easternmost portion around the Ferghana Valley), though it was sometimes used more generally to refer to other regions to the west of China as well, such as Parthia (which technically belonged to West Asia) and Tianzhu (as in the novel ''Journey to the West'', which refers to the Indian subcontinent in South Asia). Because of their strategic location astride the Silk Road, the Western Regions have been historically significant to China since at least the 3rd century BC. History Han dynasty In 138 BC, the Emperor Wu of Western Han dynasty sent a diplomatic envoy represented by Zhang Qian to Xiyu in an effort to contact and make alliance with Yue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Han Shu
The ''Book of Han'' is a history of China finished in 111 CE, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. The work was composed by Ban Gu (32–92 CE), an Eastern Han court official, with the help of his sister Ban Zhao, continuing the work of their father, Ban Biao. They modelled their work on the ''Records of the Grand Historian'' (), a cross-dynastic general history, but theirs was the first in this annals-biography form to cover a single dynasty. It is the best source, sometimes the only one, for many topics such as literature in this period. The ''Book of Han'' is also called the ''Book of the Former Han'' () to distinguish it from the ''Book of the Later Han'' () which covers the Eastern Han period (25–220 CE), and was composed in the fifth century by Fan Ye (398–445 CE). Contents This history developed from a continuation of Sima Qian's ''Records of the Grand Histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
