Xi'an, the Silk Road & the Northwest

The Wei valley around Xi'an was the heart of early imperial China. The Zhou ruled from nearby Haojing; the Qin, from Xianyang, unified China in 221 BC, and their first emperor was buried with the Terracotta Army. Han and Tang Chang'an, on the site of Xi'an, was the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, and under the Tang one of the largest cities in the world. Zhang Qian's missions west in the 2nd century BC opened the route through the Hexi Corridor of Gansu, guarded by Great Wall forts that end at Jiayuguan, and Buddhism travelled east along it, leaving the caves of Dunhuang. The monk Xuanzang returned to Chang'an from India in 645 with scriptures housed in the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.

Other powers held the fringes: the Tangut Western Xia in Ningxia until Genghis Khan destroyed it in 1227, Tibetans in Qinghai, and oasis kingdoms in the Tarim Basin that later became Uyghur and, from the 10th century, Muslim. The Qing conquered the Dzungars in the 1750s, called the territory Xinjiang, "new frontier", and made it a province in 1884. Hui uprisings devastated Shaanxi and Gansu in the 1860s and 1870s.

In the 20th century the Communists ended the Long March at Yan'an in Shaanxi, and short-lived East Turkestan republics rose in Xinjiang in 1933 and 1944. The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region was created in 1955. After riots in Ürümqi in 2009 and later attacks, authorities from 2017 detained large numbers of Uyghurs and other Muslims, estimated at up to 1.8 million people, in facilities officially called vocational education and training centres. The UN human rights office said in 2022 that abuses there may amount to crimes against humanity, and the United States and several parliaments have called the policies genocide; the Chinese government denies any abuses and describes its policies as counter-terrorism.

The north-west is where China meets Central Asia and Tibet. Xi'an and Lanzhou are Han cities with old Hui Muslim communities, whose mosques are built like Chinese temples. Ningxia is a Hui autonomous region, and Linxia in Gansu is a centre of Hui scholarship. Qinghai and southern Gansu belong to Amdo, the north-eastern Tibetan world: the Dalai Lama was born in Qinghai in 1935, the reformer Tsongkhapa near Xining, and Labrang at Xiahe is a great Gelug monastery.

Xinjiang is home to Uyghurs, a Turkic, Muslim people with their own language written in Arabic script, as well as Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, Hui and a Han population that grew rapidly after 1949. Uyghur culture is known for the muqam musical tradition, listed as UNESCO intangible heritage, dance and bazaars. Religious practice is tightly restricted: long beards and face veils are banned, and researchers estimate that thousands of mosques have been razed or damaged, which the government disputes.

Shaanxi has its own traditions: loud Qinqiang opera, shadow puppetry, paper cutting and the cave dwellings of the loess plateau. Muslim etiquette applies in Hui and Uyghur areas: pork is avoided and dress is modest.

Xi'an, with around 13 million people in its municipality, is the region's largest city and a university, aerospace and tourism centre; Shaanxi has about 40 million people. Gansu has about 25 million, with Lanzhou strung along the Yellow River; Ningxia, around 7 million, with its capital Yinchuan; Qinghai, about 6 million, with Xining; and Xinjiang about 26 million, of whom Uyghurs make up roughly 45 per cent and Han Chinese about 42 per cent. Ürümqi has about 4 million.

The economy leans on energy and farming: coal, oil and gas in Shaanxi and Xinjiang, solar and wind parks in the Gansu and Qinghai deserts, cotton and tomatoes in Xinjiang, and wine grapes on the Helan Mountain slopes in Ningxia. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a semi-military organisation, runs farms and towns across the region.

Much of the north-west is poorer than the east, and many young people leave for the coast. In Xinjiang, daily life is shaped by surveillance and checkpoints, restrictions on religion and travel, and labour transfer programmes criticised by rights groups.

The north-west eats wheat, lamb and noodles. Xi'an's Muslim Quarter is famous for yangrou paomo, flatbread crumbled into mutton soup; roujiamo, meat stuffed into a flatbread; liangpi, cold wide noodles in chilli oil; and biangbiang mian, belt-wide noodles named after one of the most complicated characters in Chinese. Lanzhou's beef noodles, niurou lamian, hand-pulled to order in a clear broth, are eaten across China.

Ningxia is known for tender lamb and for goji berries, and Qinghai for yak yoghurt, tsampa and Tibetan fare. In Xinjiang, polo is a rice pilaf, traditionally eaten by hand; laghman are wide hand-stretched noodles; samsa are lamb pastries baked in a tandoor; and kebabs and nan bread fill every bazaar. Dapanji, big-plate chicken, is stewed with potatoes and chillies and finished with wide noodles.

Fruit is a Xinjiang speciality: Hami melons, Turpan grapes and raisins, and Korla pears. Drinks include tea, fresh pomegranate juice in the bazaars, and wines from Ningxia and Xinjiang.

In Shaanxi, the Terracotta Army's pits east of Xi'an sit near the unexcavated mound of the first emperor. The city itself has its Ming walls, walkable or cyclable along the top, the Muslim Quarter and Great Mosque, the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, the Shaanxi History Museum and the stone steles of the Beilin. Mount Hua is known for cliff paths, and Yan'an for its revolutionary caves.

Gansu's Hexi Corridor runs past Zhangye's rainbow mountains in the Danxia geopark and the Ming fortress of Jiayuguan to Dunhuang, where the Mogao caves hold Buddhist murals and statues; the Singing Sand Dunes and Crescent Lake lie at the oasis edge. Qinghai Lake, with its bird islands and summer rapeseed, is a few hours from Xining and the Kumbum Monastery. Ningxia has the Western Xia tombs near Yinchuan and the dunes of Shapotou.

Xinjiang's Taklamakan oases ring the desert. Turpan has the ruined cities of Jiaohe and Gaochang, the Flaming Mountains and the Bezeklik caves; Kucha the Kizil caves; Hotan its jade. Kashgar has the Id Kah Mosque, a rebuilt old town and a Sunday livestock market, and the Karakoram Highway climbs past Karakul Lake toward Pakistan. In the north lie Heavenly Lake in the Tian Shan, Sayram Lake and Kanas.