The Ancient Tea Horse Road in Sideng Street

Shaxi () is a historic market town in

Jianchuan County Jianchuan County (; Bai: ), historically known as Yidu (; Bai: ) is a county in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture located in the western part of Yunnan Province, China. The county is about southwest of Lijiang and north of Dali. The histo ...

Dali Prefecture Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture ( zh, s=大理白族自治州, p=Dàlǐ Báizú Zìzhìzhōu; Bai: ) is an autonomous prefecture of northwestern Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China. between longitudes 98°52′ to 101°03′ east and lat ...

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

province,

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 is located roughly halfway between

Dali Dali or DALI may refer to: Art and popular culture * Dali, a location in ''Final Fantasy IX'' * ''Dali'' (Dalida album) (1984) * ''Dali'' (Ali Project album) (1994) * Espace Dalí, Salvador Dalí's permanent exhibition in France Religion ...

and

Lijiang Lijiang ( zh, s= ), formerly romanized as Likiang, is a prefecture-level city in the northwest of Yunnan Province, China. It has an area of and had a population of 1,253,878 at the 2020 census whom 288,787 lived in the built-up area (metro) ...

. The Sideng market square of Shaxi was added to the

World Monuments Watch World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and training ...

List of 100 Most Endangered Sites in 2001. Shaxi started as a trading point for

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of south-western China and nor ...

and horses during the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

(618–907). The prosperity of the town was at its height during the

Ming The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, t ...

and

Qing dynasties The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

(1368–1912). It is probably the most intact horse

caravan Caravan or caravans may refer to: Transport and travel *Campervan, a type of vehicle also known as a motor caravan *Caravan (travellers), a group of travellers journeying together **Caravanserai, a place where a caravan could stop *Caravan (trail ...

town on the

Ancient tea route The Tea Horse Road or ''Chamadao'' (), now generally referred to as the Ancient Tea Horse Road or ''Chamagudao'' () was a network of caravan paths winding through the mountains of Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet in Southwest China. This was also a tea t ...

leading from

into

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

and

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

and is now being preserved through a cooperation between the

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ran ...

(ETH) and the People's Government of

. Nearby Shibao mountain contains

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

rock carving A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions o ...

s and temples of over 1300 years old with, amongst others, images of the

bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, '' bodhi'' ('awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or ''bodhi'' in ...

Guanyin Guanyin () is a common Chinese name of the bodhisattva associated with Karuṇā, compassion known as Avalokiteśvara (). Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin, which means " he One WhoPerceives the Sounds of the World". Originally regarded as m ...

. The two main ethnic groups of Shaxi are the Bai and

Yi people The Yi or Nuosu people (Nuosu language, Nuosu: , ; see also #Names and subgroups, § Names and subgroups) are an ethnic group in South China, southern China. Numbering nine million people, they are the seventh largest of the 55 Ethnic minorit ...

References

External links

* Township-level divisions of Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture Tourism in Yunnan Chinese architectural history Tourist attractions in Yunnan {{Yunnan-geo-stub