Yongchang County () is a county located in the southern half of the

prefecture-level city A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure. During the Republican era, many of China' ...

Jinchang Jinchang () is a prefecture-level city in the centre of Gansu province, People's Republic of China, bordering Inner Mongolia to the north. Geography Jinchang City is located in central Gansu province, west of the Yellow River, north of the Qi ...

in north-central

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...

province, China, bordering

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

to the south. It has been associated with the historical

Liqian Liqian () was a county established during the Western Han dynasty and located in the south of modern Yongchang County, Jinchang, in Gansu province of Northwest China. The Western Han inhabitants of the county had migrated to the area from western ...

and

Fanhe Fanhe Town (also called Tieling New City, Fanhe New District, Tieling New District) is a recently developed town in Tieling County, where the buildings of the government of Tieling City are located in. Sightseeing Lotus Lake Wetland Park Educa ...

counties. The village of

Zhelaizhai Zhelaizhai () is a village on the edge of the Gobi desert in Gansu province, China. The area was renamed after Liqian, an ancient county, and is located in Jiaojiazhuang township, Yongchang County. Some of the modern-day residents of Zhelaizhai, ...

, located in Jiaojiazhuang township, has been the subject of international academic and media attention for its potential connection to

Sino-Roman relations Sino-Roman relations comprised the (mostly indirect) contacts and flows of trade goods, of information, and of occasional travellers between the Roman Empire and the Han Empire of China, as well as between the later Eastern Roman Empire and va ...

History

The ancient

Northern Silk Road The Northern Silk Road is an ancient trackway in northern China originating in the early capital of Xi'an and extending north of the Taklamakan Desert to reach the ancient kingdoms of Parthia, Bactria and eventually Persia and Rome. It is the nor ...

passes through Yongchang County; numerous

Han Han may refer to: Ethnic groups * Han Chinese, or Han People (): the name for the largest ethnic group in China, which also constitutes the world's largest ethnic group. ** Han Taiwanese (): the name for the ethnic group of the Taiwanese p ...

envoys were sent west along this trackway, some parties exceeding 100 members, late in the first millennium BC. The Han dynasty sent one mission to

Parthia Parthia ( peo, 𐎱𐎼𐎰𐎺 ''Parθava''; xpr, 𐭐𐭓𐭕𐭅 ''Parθaw''; pal, 𐭯𐭫𐭮𐭥𐭡𐭥 ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Med ...

, which was reciprocated around 100 BC: Roman emissaries were captured by the Chinese in 30 BC along the Silk Road at Yongchang. At various times during the 20th century and early 21st century, the county has entered the sight of media because some of the inhabitants of Jiaojiazhuang township's Liqian village () (

), located where the ancient

county had existed in the early imperial period (

Western Han dynasty The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a war ...

Sui dynasty The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and layi ...

), have been theorized to be descendants of a

Roman legion The Roman legion ( la, legiō, ) was the largest military unit of the Roman army, composed of 5,200 infantry and 300 equites (cavalry) in the period of the Roman Republic (509 BC–27 BC) and of 5,600 infantry and 200 auxilia in the period of ...

. Although this story has been seized upon by enthusiastic Chinese of the area and non-specialist Westerners, at least two eminent Chinese authorities have shown that the notion has serious shortcomings.

Administrative divisions

In 1996, Yongchang County was made up of four

towns A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

and six

townships A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

. In 2000, Dongzhai township and Shuiyuan township both became towns. Since that change, Yongchang County has been made up of the following six towns and four townships: Six towns: * Chengguan (), Hexibu (),

Xinchengzi Xinchengzi Town () is a town located in the Miyun District of Beijing, China. It borders Liangjianfang and Laowa Townships in the north, Wulingshan Town in the east and south, as well as Gubeikou and Taishitun Towns in the west. It had 6,528 resi ...

(), Zhuwangbu (), Dongzhai (),

Shuiyuan Shuiyuan may refer to: * Shuiyuan, Guangxi Shuiyuan () is a town in Huanjiang Maonan Autonomous County, Guangxi, China. As of the 2019 census it had a population of 42,255 and an area of . Administrative division As of 2021, the town is divided i ...

() Four townships: * Hongshanyao (), Jiaojiazhuang (), Liuba (), Nanba ()

Climate

Transport

China National Highway 312 China National Highway 312 (312国道), also referred to as Route 312 or The Mother Road, is a key east-west route beginning in Shanghai and ending at Khorgas, Xinjiang in the Ili River valley, on the border with Kazakhstan. In total it spans ...

Gallery

File:Yongchang, Jinchang, Gansu, China - panoramio (5).jpg, Local mural File:Yongchang, Jinchang, Gansu, China - panoramio (14).jpg, Local landscape File:Yongchang, Jinchang, Gansu, China - panoramio (29).jpg, Yongchang Service Area () File:Yongchang, Jinchang, Gansu, China - panoramio (25).jpg, Local landscape

References

External links

* County-level divisions of Gansu Jinchang {{Gansu-geo-stub