Xi'an

Read its story

• The valley that kept being the capitalChang'an, the Wei river, and the eastern end of the overland routes.4 chapters · about 9 min · 3 sources

Where it is

Xi'an sits in the Wei river valley in the Guanzhong basin, ringed by mountains and reached through a small number of passes. That combination — good loess farmland inside a defensible bowl, with the routes west opening from its far end — is why so many dynasties put their capital here. As Chang'an it was the eastern anchor of the overland routes across Asia, and at its Tang height it was laid out on a grid of walled wards on a scale nothing in Europe then approached.

The land and water around it

• The Guanzhong basinbasin

  A fertile bowl on the Wei, enclosed by mountains and entered through passes. Defensible enough to hold a capital and productive enough to feed one, which is a rarer combination than it sounds.

• The Wei riverriver

  A major tributary of the Yellow River, and the valley's axis. Successive capitals sat on or near it, shifting position as channels and canals changed.

• The loess plateauplateau

  Wind-deposited silt north and west of the city — easy to work, easy to erode, and the reason the Yellow River carries the sediment load it does.

Its history, in short

The valley holds capitals from the Western Zhou onward. The First Qin Emperor unified the warring states from here in 221 BCE and was buried a short way east under a mound whose surrounding pits held a life-size army. Han and then Tang Chang'an made the city a terminus for merchants, monks, envoys and musicians from across Asia; Nestorian Christians, Zoroastrians, Manichaeans and Muslims all had communities in it. After the Tang collapsed the capital moved east for good and the city became a provincial one. In 1974 farmers digging a well found the terracotta figures, and the city's modern identity was set by what was under it rather than what was on it.

Timeline

Dates are shown on a timeline rather than as changing shapes on the map. The globe draws modern boundaries only, and tinting a modern outline to stand for a historical one would state something we cannot source.

Places that carry meaning

• The terracotta armyc. 210 BCE

  Pits of infantry, archers, chariots and horses guarding the approach to the mound. They were painted; most of the pigment did not survive contact with air after excavation, which is one reason the central tomb is left alone.

• The Great MosqueFounded in the Tang period; standing buildings largely Ming

  A mosque built to a Chinese courtyard plan, with a pagoda-form minaret. It belongs to the Hui community, whose presence in the city goes back to the overland trade.

• The Ming walls14th century

  The circuit still standing enclosed the much-reduced Ming city, not Tang Chang'an, which was several times larger. The walls are a good lesson in how a city's most visible monument can misrepresent its scale.

Learn the language here

1. 1Understand which languages are spoken hereXi'an is multilingual. Start with which languages are used, by whom, and for what — the phrase list only covers one of them.Written by Globe Quest
2. 2Read why the language is what it isThe quest for this place covers how its languages got here and who speaks them.Written by Globe Quest

Check yourself

• What was inscribed as World Heritage in 2014?

  A transnational route corridor spanning three countries

  The Chang'an–Tianshan corridor lists a route across China, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan rather than a single monument.

• What do the standing city walls enclose?

  The much smaller Ming city

  Tang Chang'an was several times larger. The most visible monument describes a later, smaller city.

Worth arguing about

• The central tomb is deliberately not excavated. When is not digging the right archaeological decision?
• A route was listed as heritage instead of a building. What else is better understood as a corridor than a place?

Related places