Yumen Pass ( zh, s=, t=, p=Yùmén Guān; , ), or Jade Gate or Pass of the Jade Gate, is the name of a pass of the

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

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. Sachu (Dunhuang) was ...

in today's

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 ...

Province of

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 ...

. During the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...

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

Silk Road The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over , it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the ...

passed, and was the one road connecting

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

with

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

(China), the former called the

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 prese ...

. 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 Silk Road, were inscribed in 2014 on the UNESCO

World Heritage List World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural heritag ...

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 it ...

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

" (a multi-county administrative unit) of Gansu province, Yumen Pass is located some 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