Gansu is a province in north-central China. Its city of Jiayuguan is known for the striking Overhanging Great Wall and imposing Jiayuguan Pass fortress complex, both part of the Great Wall of China.

The nearby city of Jiuquan is a gateway to the July 1st glacier, which crowns the Qilian Mountains to the south, and to the Gobi Desert. Jiuquan's Silk Road Museum houses artifacts from this ancient trade route.

Gansu province, in northwest China, shares its borders with the Tibetan plateaus and Mongolia. It is home to 26 million people, including several Tibetan and Central Asian minorities. These influences, plus a dramatic desert terrain, make Gansu an exotic, unusual Chinese destination for travellers.

Plateaus are the dominant physical features of Gansu. Along the southern border, the lofty ranges of the Qilian Mountains separate Gansu from Qinghai. These ranges have an average elevation of 12,900 feet (3,900 metres) above sea level. Near Lanzhou the Huang He valley opens out, and excellent agricultural land is available.

Some 120 miles (190 km) northwest of Lanzhou there is a stretch of interior drainage where the land is relatively flat and where glacier-fed streams, including the Hei River, disappear into the desert; this is the area referred to as the Hexi (Gansu) Corridor.

The higher mountains nearby are covered with forests, and their lower slopes are green with grasses, but the floor of the corridor itself is monotonously flat and barren yellow earth. Geologically, formations of the Neogene and Paleogene periods (those about 2.6 to 65 million years old) appear in a number of basins in Gansu, with strata generally composed of red clays, conglomerates, red sandstones, and gypsum.

The topographical features of Gansu are relatively uncomplicated in the west and northwest, in contrast to the southeast, where the land has suffered local dislocations from earthquakes.

In the northwest there are very few mountains but rather a hilly terrain that merges into the Gobi Desert to the east. The average elevation is about 3,000 feet (900 metres).

The eastern part of Gansu is a major centre of earthquakes in China. From the 6th century CE to the present, major earthquakes have taken place an average of once every 65 years, while minor quakes occur at least once every 10 years.

Gansu's western frontier thus juts right into the borders of the vast steppes of Mongolia, the unforgiving deserts of Xinjiang and the high mountain wastelands of the Tibetan Plateau.

The northwest province of Gansu spans the Qinghai-Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Loess plateaus in the upper reaches of the Yellow River.

The topography is complex and the climate unpredictable. The river valleys in the south belong to a subtropical zone while the north is an arid temperate zone.

The province was a center for East-West cultural exchanges as early as the Han and Tang dynasties. Many people go to Gansu to seek out the the roots of world civilization.

The 1,600-km-long Silk Road of the Han and Tang dynasties unfailingly brings the visitor to such places as the grottoes at Dunhuang (a veritable world-class treasure house of art), the Jiayu Pass on the Great Wall of China, Majiishan Grottoes of Tianshui, the Labrang Temple of Xiahe, the Great Buddha Temple at Zhangeye and the bronze sculpture of galloping horse in Wuwei.

Gansu contains some of the largest and most important Tibetan monasteries outside of Tibet province.

Travel by local bus across high, frigid plateaus to reach them. Ride horses across the plateaus past yurts. Share lunch with Tibetan monks. Share yak butter tea with monks.

This part of China bears almost no resemblance to Eastern Han China. Empty, wild, culturally and ethnically distinct, it offers some of the most exhilarating travel in the world.

Imagine 7 hours of travel across a high plateau in a rickety bus dating from 1970. Every few hours, one of your neighbors, swathed in yak wool, stops the bus, dismounts, and starts walking to the horizon. You can see for 20 miles in all directions. There are no towns in sight. It is an empty and riveting land.

Beware of the time of year you travel there. It is wicked cold even in May. In rural areas (the most interesting areas are rural), very few housing options are available. Probably, there will be no heat. So bring layers or buy a yak wool coat.

0:00 Intro
0:46 The road across the desert
40:40 Zhangye Morning Driving

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