Biandukou () is a pass with an elevation of over 3,500 m in the

Altyn-Tagh Altyn-Tagh (also Altun Mountains or Altun Shan) is a mountain range in Northwestern China that separates the Eastern Tarim Basin from the Tibetan Plateau. The western third is in Xinjiang while the eastern part forms the border between Qinghai t ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. It links

Minle County Minle County () is a CPRC, county in Gansu province of China, bordering Qinghai province to the south. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Zhangye. Its postal code is 734500, and in 1999 its population was people. The ...

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, Ti ...

in the north and

Qilian County Qilian County ( zh, s=祁连县, ), in Tibetan Dhola County, is a county of Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai, Qinghai Province, China. The Haibei Qilian Airport is located in the county. History The history of human activity in th ...

Qinghai Qinghai is an inland Provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. It is the largest provinces of China, province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xin ...

in the south. Biandukou has been an important pass in history. It could have been through here that the Chinese Buddhist traveler

Faxian Faxian (337–), formerly romanization of Chinese, romanized as Fa-hien and Fa-hsien, was a Han Chinese, Chinese Chinese Buddhism, Buddhist bhikkhu, monk and translator who traveled on foot from Eastern Jin dynasty, Jin China to medieval India t ...

arrived in

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 ...

, Gansu in the end of the 4th century AD. During the

Sui dynasty The Sui dynasty ( ) was a short-lived Dynasties of China, Chinese imperial dynasty that ruled from 581 to 618. The re-unification of China proper under the Sui brought the Northern and Southern dynasties era to a close, ending a prolonged peri ...

, it was known as Dadoubagu ().

Emperor Yang of Sui Emperor Yang of Sui (隋煬帝, 569 – 11 April 618), personal name Yang Guang (), alternative name Ying (), Xianbei name Amo (), was the second emperor of the Sui dynasty of China. Emperor Yang's original name was Yang Ying, but he was rena ...

went to Zhangye in 609 AD through Dadoubagu, where many people died from cold weather.

References

Mountain passes of China Landforms of Gansu Landforms of Qinghai {{Gansu-geo-stub