The Ancient Tea Horse Road in Sideng Street

Shaxi () is a historic market town in

Jianchuan County Jianchuan County () 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 historical town of Shaxi in the southeast of the coun ...

Dali Prefecture Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture (; Bai: ) is an autonomous prefecture of northwestern Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China. Dali has an area of and its seat is located in Xiaguan, Dali City. Subdivisions The prefecture is subdivided into ...

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

province, China. It is located roughly halfway between Dali and

Lijiang Lijiang (), also known 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) made of Gucheng ...

. 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 traini ...

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 southwestern China and north ...

and horses during the

Tang Dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdom ...

(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, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peop ...

and

Qing dynasties The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...

(1368–1912). It is probably the most intact horse caravan 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, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

and

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...

and is now being preserved through a cooperation between the

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , a ...

(ETH) and the People's Government of

. Nearby Shibao mountain contains

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

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 ...

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

bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva ( ; sa, 𑀩𑁄𑀥𑀺𑀲𑀢𑁆𑀢𑁆𑀯 (Brahmī), translit=bodhisattva, label=Sanskrit) or bodhisatva is a person who is on the path towards bodhi ('awakening') or Buddhahood. In the Early Buddhist schools ...

Guanyin Guanyin () is a Bodhisattva associated with compassion. She is the East Asian representation of Avalokiteśvara ( sa, अवलोकितेश्वर) and has been adopted by other Eastern religions, including Chinese folk religion. She ...

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

Yi people The Yi or Nuosu people,; zh, c=彝族, p=Yízú, l=Yi ethnicity historically known as the Lolo,; vi, Lô Lô; th, โล-โล, Lo-Lo are an ethnic group in China, Vietnam, and Thailand. Numbering nine million people, they are the sev ...

References

External links

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