Day 23 Wed July 12
I was up at 5 to give an interview for Greg Nestoroff of Kootenay Culture Magazine on the KMC Karabiner.
CHINA – SICHUAN – EAST (Chengdu, Mianyang, Luzhou)
CHENGDU (pop 20,937,757). The capital of the Chinese province of Sichuan, it is the fourth most populous city in China. It is traditionally the hub of Western China.
Chengdu is located in central Sichuan. The surrounding Chengdu Plain is known as the “Country of Heaven” and the “Land of Abundance”. Its prehistoric settlers included the Sanxingdui culture. The site of Dujiangyan, an ancient irrigation system, is designated as a World Heritage Site. The Jin River flows through the city. Chengdu’s culture largely reflects that of its province, Sichuan. It is associated with the giant panda, a Chinese national symbol, which inhabits the area of Sichuan; the city is home to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.
Founded by the state of Shu, it was the capital of Liu Bei’s Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms Era, as well as several other local kingdoms during the Middle Ages. During World War II, refugees from eastern China fleeing from the Japanese settled in Chengdu. After the war, Chengdu was briefly the capital of the Nationalist Republican government until it withdrew to Taipei on the island of Taiwan. Under the PRC, Chengdu’s importance as a link between Eastern and Western China expanded, with railways built to Chongqing in 1952, and Kunming and Tibet afterward. In the 1960s, Chengdu became an important defence industry hub.
Chengdu is now one of the most important economic, financial, commercial, cultural, transportation, and communication centers in China. Its economy is diverse, characterized by the machinery, automobile, medicine, food, and information technology industries. Chengdu also hosts many international companies; more than 300 Fortune 500 companies have established branches in Chengdu. The city also hosts more than 16 foreign consulates.
After a lazy morning, we took the metro about 12 stops to Jinsha.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES of the ANCIENT SHU STATE: Site at Jinsha and Joint Tombs of Boat-shaped Coffins in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province; Site of Sanxingdui in Guanghan City, Sichuan Province 29C.BC-5C.BC (29/01/2013)
According to legends and historical records, there was once an ancient state called “Shu” located in the enclosed Sichuan Basin in Southwest China. In 316 B.C., the ancient Shu State was conquered by the Qin State and the ancient Shu culture had been buried under the mainstream Central Plain (Zhongyuan) culture, only leaving a few reign titles mentioned in the later literature and tales. Thus, the reconstruction of the ancient Shu history and culture heavily relies on archaeological materials and references. This unique and fascinating civilization was entirely different from the Bronze Civilization of the Yellow River Valley.
There are three sites.
1. Jinsha Site. Located in the west of Chengdu city, this is the religious and sacrificial area. The site emerged after Sanxingdui in 1200 B.C. and was abandoned in around 650 B.C. A west-east river cuts the site into the south and north parts. The religious and sacrificial area had a tall wooden sacrificial building and over 6000 valuable cultural relics have been unearthed from more than 60 remains of ritual objects.
2. Sanxingdui Site. Located in the western suburb of Guanghan City, this is a large city site that was the cultural center of the Bronze Civilization from about 1800 to 1200 B.C. The city was enclosed by high earthen city walls.
3. Joint Tombs of Boat-shaped Coffins. Located in central Chengdu city, it is about 0.3 hectares with a large tomb 30.5 m long, 20.3 m wide, and 2.5 m deep with 17 coffins of different sizes dating to 400 B.C. The bottom of the pit is paved by wood slabs bearing a large boat-shaped coffin of the occupant and smaller coffins in other shapes. All coffins are made of single trunks of trees. The largest boat-shaped coffin is 18.8 m long and 1.5 m wide and contains a large number of valuable cultural relics. Above the tomb was a building 38.5 m long and 30 m wide with a temple in the front and residence in the rear”. This is the tomb of the royal family of the ancient Shu State. After Shu was conquered by the Qin State, the tomb, just like the Sanxingdui Site and Jinsha Site, was long forgotten.
Jinsha has two main areas, an archaeological dig with 19 pits and little to see. The main museum hall is in a grand building with 5 exhibit rooms showing a lot of jade and bronze objects, mostly of ritual and religious use. 70¥ no reduction.
We then hired bicycles to see the sliced porosity block, Du Fu, and then back to the hotel. Sliced Porosity Block. In the NM Architectural Delights series, these are several high-rise buildings with unique “cut-outs”. leaning sections and special features that allow sunlight to penetrate past them giving light to the lower apartment buildings around the block.
Du Fu’s Thatched Cottage. Du Fu (712–770) was a Chinese poet and politician during the Tang dynasty. He is frequently called the greatest of the Chinese poets. His greatest ambition was to serve his country as a successful civil servant, but he proved unable to make the necessary accommodations. His life, like the whole country, was devastated by the An Lushan Rebellion of 755, and his last 15 years were a time of almost constant unrest.
Of his poetic writing, nearly fifteen hundred poems have been preserved over the ages. He has been called the “Poet-Historian” and the “Poet-Sage” by Chinese critics, while the range of his work has allowed him to be introduced to Western readers.
Du Fu is the first person in the historical record identified as a diabetic patient. In his later years, he suffered from diabetes and pulmonary tuberculosis and died on board a ship on the Yangtze River, aged 58 years old.
In a wonderful park with pools, lily ponds, a pagoda, and many outbuildings with exhibits, the cottage sits in the middle. It has 4 simple rooms with some non-original furniture. It has been reconstructed several times over 5 dynasties. 50¥ no reduction
ON Yujian Chuangy Hotel, CC Plaza Hotel. 270¥. For the third night, a nice apartment room on the 22nd floor (office on the 12th floor, accepts foreigners).
Day 24 Thur July 13
The rental car (230¥/day, 300 km per day limit) was delivered to the hotel. We rented for only 3 days hoping to be back in Chengdu by then.
Go to China – Sichuan- Tibetan Autonomous
I didn’t see
Heaven Pit and Ground Seam Scenic Spot Tentative WHS (29/11/2001) is a part of Qiyao Mountain range, a geodetic structure in the upward and folded zone of Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan and Guizhou at the west edge of Wuyi Mountain-Xuefengshan Mountain in a NE-SW direction. It is a typical landform of shallow-medium cut platform peak-cluster depression. The karst hydrogeological system consists of water discharging holes and the underground river and heaven-window funnel on its lower reaches, with a height difference between the head and the tail of 1700m and 37km long. The wider valley section of the upper reaches is 7.5 km long. In the middle are gorges and is 13km long, the gorge is 100m-500m wide, with a cut depth of 200m-500m. The groundwater flows underground from several places one-odd kilometre from its lower section and always ends dry. The compound valley section is 5.5km long and is a box-type valley. Finally, it becomes a “seam”. It changes into an underground river, which flows through the Xiaozhai heaven pit and ends at the outlet of Migonghe River, with a total length of 7.026 km. The underground river cavern is less than 15m, but its height is over 100m. The outlet of the underground river is located on the precipice of Migonghe River, with a waterfall drop of 46m. Xiaozhai Heaven Pit is a karst tunnel. its upper part is a large elliptic pit, with a diameter of 537m -626m and depth of 320m, and its lower part is a vertical rectangle-like well, with a depth of 342m. The pit is completely enclosed, if you stand at the pit bottom, you seem to look at the sky from the bottom of a well.
The plants are dawn redwood, ginkgo, walnut, cucommia. Animals include the golden monkey, giant salamander, otter, zibet, clouded leopard, golden pheasant, Chinese pangolin and musk deer, white crickets in deep caverns, and the rare flying squirrels in the caverns.
==============================================================
Day 25 Thur July 13
CHINA – SICHUAN – TIBETAN AUTONOMOUS (Garze, Ngawa)
Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture in the western arm of Sichuan Province, China bordering Yunnan to the south, the Tibet Autonomous Region to the west, and Gansu to the north and northwest.
The prefecture’s area is 151,078 sq km, pop. 900,000, with Tibetans accounting for 77.8% of the total population. The capital city of Garzê is Kangding
History. In 1950, following the defeat of the Kuomintang forces by the People’s Liberation Army, the area fell within the control of the People’s Republic of China. Eastern Xikang was merged with Sichuan in 1955, where Garzê became an Autonomous Prefecture.
Tibetans 78%, Han Chinese 18%, Yi 2.5%, Qiang .32%.
Languages. Garzê is linguistically diverse, having many variants of Tibetan as well as several
Climate. A monsoon-influenced climate, it lies in the transition between a humid continental (Dwb) and a subtropical highland climate. The diurnal temperature variation averages at most 10.6 °C (19.1 °F) in any month. From April to September, rain is very common. Temperatures range from −1.9 °C (28.6 °F) in January to 15.7 °C (60.3 °F) in July.
July and August are peak seasons for tourism in Sichuan, mainly in the Sichuan-Tibet line and Ruoergai grasslands. Many people, and relatively expensive.
Get in. By plane. Some international connections: (KLM), the United States, Singapore, Japan, Korea and Hong Kong,
Get around
By train. Many trains between Chongqing and Chengdu.
By Buses. Chongqing to Chengdu for 4 hours. Many popular tourist destinations such as Leshan and Jiuzhaigou National Park are serviced by buses. The network is quite extensive and the highways are good. Buses also seem to mostly run on time.
Dacheng Lamo Kerti Gompa – at Langmusi, has traditional Tibetan sky-burials
Jinsha site. Discovered in 2001 in Chengdu. The museum has bronze ware, stone tools, and elephant ivory.
Eat Kung Pao Chicken (宮保雞丁) and Twice Cooked Pork (回鍋肉). Famously spicy, with liberal use of chillies and the indigenous Sichuan pepper.
Hot Pot (火锅; Huoguo, cheap but extremely spicy.
We drove about 250 km from Chengdu to the bridge.
Luding Bridge. In the NM Pedestrian and Historical Bridges series, it is a bridge over the Dadu River in Luding County, located about 80 kilometres west of the city of Ya’an. The bridge dates from the Qing Dynasty and is considered a historical landmark. It was an important crossing on the road between Sichuan and Tibet. The bridge was the location of the Battle of Luding Bridge, one of the most important events in the Long March.
In 1935, during the Long March, soldiers of the Fourth Regiment of the Chinese Workers and Peasants’ Army secured the bridge as a river crossing vital to the Red Army.
Coming from the east side of the river, we crossed a highway bridge and immediately hit a wall of traffic that was barely moving. We parked at a gas station and walked 1.2 km to the bridge. Come to the Dadu Bridge first, a cable-suspended steel bridge built in 1950 with the road blocked by concrete, the deck access bricked over, and the bridge deck removed. Continue on the road to the village and the bridge. Buy the 10¥ ticket and join a very long line to walk across the bridge. Only one end crosses at once. At the narrowest part of the raging river, it is suspended on 4 heavy chains and the wood deck. It is very wobbly and people cross with a very shuffling wide gait, often forming a chain of people holding onto the shoulders of those ahead. There is a nice wood pavilion at each end.
When you reach the village and the entrance to a tunnel, the reason for the long line of traffic is people trying to find a parking place to see the bridge and not walk. I felt sorry for all the truckers on their way to Tibet on this road.
KANGDING (pop urban center Lucheng, 134,000). Gateway to western Sichuan’s Tibetan region. It is the seat of Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan on the bank of the Dadu River. It has been considered the historical border between the Kham region of Tibet and the Sichuan region.
Kangding is located in a valley of the Tibetan Plateau about 210 km west-southwest of Chengdu, the provincial capital, and 100 km west of Ya’an. It is a city populated by significant proportions of both Tibetans and Han. Situated at 8,400′ elevation, the surrounding snow-capped mountains tower fifteen thousand feet. It is wedged into the angle where three valleys come together, the Tar and the Chen rivers meeting just below the town to form the Tarchendo.
The city features a sizable square, People’s Square, where young and old alike gather in the early hours of the morning to do Tai Chi, play badminton, or socialize. Traditional Tibetan and Sichuanese restaurants are easily found throughout the city.
Dentok, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery sits on Paoma Mountain overlooking the city and is accessible by cable car. Kangding contains some notable Buddhist monasteries, including Nanwu Si Monastery, Anjue Monastery and Jinggang Monastery.
The Catholic church was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and rebuilt in the 1980s. Today it is no longer in use and has been converted into shops and a hotel.
Dartsedo had a “reform through labour” prison or laogai after 1959. Of the 300 women arrested with her, only 100 survived.
History. Kangding was on the historical border between Tibet and the rest of China, from Kangding to the west lies Tibetan civilization where as to the east Han cultural areas. During its history, Kangding has witnessed many conflicts between Tibetan and Han polities. Kangding was for many centuries an important trading city where Han brick tea was carried by porters from Chengdu and other centres to trade for Tibetan wool. A dispute involving the sovereignty over the city between Tibet and the Qing was resolved when the Manchu forces took the city by storm in the Battle of Dartsedo in 1701.
On July 1, 1786, an earthquake of 7.75 on the Moment magnitude scale ruined nearly the entire city.
Kanding had the choice of only 2 hotels, one very expensive and the other not allowing foreigners. After Kangding, the highway climbed for along ways through this very mountainous area until we were in total cloud. At the top of a pass at 4219m, we came out of the cloud and above the treeline – alpine terrain with a series of rugged rocky peaks.
We passed several communities of indigenous herders living in wall tents and yurts with many horses and yaks. More permanent interspersed buildings were attractive stone one and two-story buildings with elaborate geometric woodwork under the eaves, and the lintels of the windows and door frames. Small chortens and streams of prayer flags dotted the roadside. It was 13°C.
Tibetan inscriptions of white rocks are common on the hillsides. A ‘chorten’ of prayer flags was below the rock inscription.
ON Kangding Tagong Grassland Hotel, Tagong Town. 291¥. An average 2-story hotel that accepted foreigners.
Day 25 Fri July 14
It rained all night and during the day. We headed east back to Sichuan East and Chengdu. The descent off the high plateau followed a dramatic canyon next to a raging whitewater river, for a long way! It took us over 8 hours of driving in the mountains to finally arrive at the flat area north of Chengdu.
Sanxingdui Museum. Located in the northeast corner of the Sanxingdui site, on the Bank of Duck River 38 kilometres from Chengdu and 26 km from Deyang. Part of the Archaeological Site of the Ancient Shu Civilization Tentative WHS, this was a large city site that was the cultural center of the Bronze Civilization from about 1800 to 1200 B.C. The city was enclosed by high earthen city walls. Free
As there were no hotels in the area that accepted foreigners, we returned to the same hotel that we had stayed at previously for 2 nights.
ON Yujian Chuangy Hotel CC Plaza. 270¥. A nice apartment room on the 22nd floor for the third night.
Day 26 Sat July 15
Back after 2 days of driving through Sichuan Autonomous Prefecture, we left Chengdu at 12:30 on a high-speed train to go to Guiyang, Guizhou Province, 3 hours. 279¥
Go to China – South
Religion. Tibetan Buddhism is historically the predominant religion practiced in Garzê. Some notable Gompas here include:
Palpung Monastery is a gompa in Babang Township, Dêgê County, Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Palpung is the name of the congregation of monasteries and centers of the Tai Situpa lineage of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism as well as the name of the Tai Situ’s monastic seat in Babang, Kham (modern Sichuan). Palpung means “glorious union of study and practice”. Palpung originated in the 12th century and wielded considerable religious influence over the centuries. It is one of the most prestigious centers in Tibetan history. The current monastery was founded in 1727. It is the seat of four lines of incarnate lamas.
The monastery once hosted more than 1000 monks and had one of the most leading monastic universities of the area. Palpung was known for its huge library with more than 324,000 texts and an art collection of more than 10,150 thangkas. It leads in spiritual painting, spiritual, studious and artistic excellence and authority.
The monastery was partially destroyed in the late 1950s during the Cultural Revolution. In 1998-1999 it was added to the list of worldwide endangered list of monuments There are an estimated 800 monks residing in the monastery itself and a larger number resident in the surrounding region.
The Palpung congregation] consists of more than 180 monasteries and temples throughout some Chinese and Tibetan districts. Palpung Congregation also has branch institutions in Europe, the USA, Canada Oceania and Asia altogether about 300 branches worldwide.
Shechen Monastery, Garzê. One of the “Six Mother Monasteries” of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. It was originally located in Kham, Tibet, but was destroyed in the late 1950s during the Cultural Revolution and was rebuilt in Nepal in 1985.
The original Shechen Monastery was located southwest of Langduo Township in Kham on the route to Dzogchen Monastery in what is now Dêgê County, Garzê Prefecture, Sichuan, China. It was founded in 1695 and became extremely influential in the 18th and 19th centuries, with up to 160 satellite monasteries dotting the hillsides. The monastery was destroyed in the 1950s as part of the Communist Chinese government’s Cultural Revolution. In the 1980s, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche transplanted the rich tradition of the original Shechen Monastery to a new home near the great Stupa of Boudhanath in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Today. The monastery serves as the main seat of the Shechen tradition in exile. There are more than 300 monks at Shechen Monastery. The monastery teaches music, dance, painting and Buddhist philosophy. Its elementary school provides “a modern education for children between five and fourteen years of age.”Tagong Temple.
Dzogchen Monastery. is one of the “Six Mother Monasteries” of the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. It is located in Kham.
History. Dzogchen Monastery was founded by Pema Rigdzin, 1st Dzogchen Rinpoche (1625-1697) in 1684. It became especially renowned for its Sri Singha Shedra, shortly after the monastery was almost totally destroyed by an earthquake in 1842. It eventually grew into the largest Nyingma monastery of all time.
From 1872-1935, Dzogchen Monastery was at the peak of its activity, with up to five hundred monks residing, 13 retreat centres, and an estimated two hundred and eighty branches – a gathering of which would have seen tens of thousands of lamas, tulkus, khenpos, monks and nuns. Dzogchen was also one of the most famous centres of sacred ritual dance, now commonly known as lama dancing.
Dzogchen Monastery is also known as the principal repository of the Konchok Chidu cycle of the Jangter or “Northern Treasure”, a prominent terma cycle.
The monastery’s main temple was destroyed by fire in the second month of the Fire Mouse year (1936). It was rebuilt and then the whole monastery was destroyed by the Chinese in 1959.
Dzogchen Monastery in India. Following the destruction of the monastery in the late 1950s, during which the complex was burnt to the ground for a second time in its history, it was re-established in South India according to the directions of the 14th Dalai Lama. 1985-1992, the Dalai Lama formally inaugurated the new Dzogchen Monastery
Dzogchen Monastery in Tibet. Since the early 1980s, the monastery has been undergoing reconstruction. It has 300 legally registered monks in residence. The complex includes a shedra and a school that teaches traditional Tibetan medicine.
Dzongsar Monastery is a Buddhist monastery southeast of the town of Derge. It was founded in 746, destroyed in 1958, and rebuilt in 1983. The monastery belongs to the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism and is noted for its eclecticism of the Rimé movement and its openness to most of the teaching sects of Tibetan Buddhism.Dzongsar Gonpa was founded in 746 AD by a Bönpo Lama. The Bönpo shrine remained until 1958. The original Bönpo Gonpa was transformed into a Nyingma and a Kadampa temple at some stage. In 1275 it was founded as a Sakya monastery.
Before 1958, Dzongsar had between 300 and 500 permanent resident monks. All the temples were destroyed in 1958, but rebuilding began in 1983. The monastery had twenty-three temples, large and small, and many important sacred rooms. Dzongsar had a unique collection of Rimé scriptures and teachings, gathered by the proponents of the Rime movement. It was known to be flexible in its teachings and made it possible to study eight sects of Buddhism.
New monastery. In 1983 the temples and institutions of the monastery were rebuilt with six large and small temples and 180 monk’s residences. The monastery is also known for its incense made from precious, natural herbal materials from the highlands of Eastern Tibet and is said to have healing effects on the mind and soul and have the ability to prevent infectious diseases.
Kandze Monastery is situated 2 km north of Garzê Town and was built c. 1642 CE overlooking their castles known as Mazur and Khangsar. It once housed 1,500 monks making it, with Chamdo, the largest in Kham. The pilgrimage circuit around the monastery was almost eight kilometres long. In the 1909-1918 war the castles were occupied by Chinese troops and are now in ruins.
It has been extensively renovated since 1981 and now houses about 700 monks.
Kharnang Monastery is a Buddhist monastery to the northwest of Lhobasha village.The monastery comprised 450 monks including lamas in 1950.
In 1955, persecutions by the Chinese authorities started in Kharnang monastery, leading some monks to commit suicide rather than break their vow of celibacy. In the spring of 1956, the lands and herds belonging to the monastery were seized during the first of the democratic reforms. Consequently, the monks were forced to work in the fields.
In 1979, Adhe Tapontsang, a former Tibetan prisoner released in 1985 and now living in exile in Dharamsala, was allowed to visit Kharnang monastery, as well as Karze Day-tshal monastery and De Gonpo Temple was completely destroyed and plundered, sometime during the Cultural Revolution.
Nanwu Si Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery west of the town of Kangding. The monastery is home to about 80 Buddhist monks.
Sershul Monastery is the largest Gelugpa monastery and has the only Buddhist Monastic University in the Kham. Home to 1300 monks, and the religious center of Sêrxü County—the highest, largest, poorest, coldest, and most remote county in Sichuan Province.
Sershul Monastery has six existing temples, most of which are fairly well preserved since before 1949.
The largest temple, which is more than 300 years old, contains two great chanting halls and many precious relics including one of Je Tsongkhapa’s teeth
Sershul Monastery was established in 1701 and has a collection of rare sacred Buddhist objects, like the wooden block and hammer used during the initiation and penance ceremonies of monks at the Nalanda University in India.
Tongkor Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery located in Zithang Town, and was founded in the 15th century. It was previously the largest monastery in the county with some 500 monks about the beginning of the 20th century. This had dropped to about 70 monks at the time of the 2008 crackdown. On April 3, 2008, troops fired upon protesters killing at least 10 people. The protests were sparked by a raid on the monastery by police, the detention of a senior monk, and resentment over intensified Patriotic Education.” Up to 14 people were killed.
Larung Gar Buddhist Institute in the Larung Valley was the largest Buddhist monastic center until demolitions by the Chinese government recommenced in July 2016. The community is composed of residences and retreat meditation huts.
Monks and nuns continued to move to Larung Gar to study, and the international population from Tibet, China, Mongolia, and other Asian countries was said to officially be 10,000 people. By June 2016, Chinese authorities ordered a cut in the number of residents by half to 5000, with no more than 3,500 nuns and 1,500 monks, as the huge influx of people living in DIY housing was becoming a safety and fire hazard.
The director of Free Tibet stated, “The demolition at Larung Gar is clearly nothing to do with overcrowding – it is just another tactic in China’s attempt to subvert the influence of Buddhism in Tibet.”
Yarchen Gar Buddhist Institute is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery of the Nyingma school. The majority of its Tibetan and Chinese residents are nuns, leading to it being called the “City of Nuns”. By the end of 2019, more than half of their residences had been demolished by Chinese authorities. At its height, its sangha of an estimated 10,000 nuns, monks and lay practitioners was considered the largest concentration of monastics in the world.
Evictions of monks and nuns began in 2001 after residences were demolished. In August 2017, a further 2000 residences were torn down and a similar number of nuns and monks were evicted by Chinese authorities.
The monastery has periodically been closed to foreigners and was again closed in April 2019. In the following month of May, forced removals of 7,000 residents began, and in July at least 3,000 nuns’ residences were demolished. By August 2019, a large swathe of the nun’s area had been cleared, likely to pave the way for tourist infrastructure.
=============================================================
CHINA – QINGHAI – EAST (Haibei, Hainan, Huangnan, Xining)
M@P: Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
Tentative WHS: Qinghai Lake
XL
Haibei Tibetan
Hainan Tibetan
Huangnan Tibetan
Art Museums: Ledu district: Liuwan Museum of Ancient Painted Pottery
Qinghaihu National Nature Reserve
Qinghai Lake
XINING is the capital of Qinghai province and the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau. The city was a commercial hub along the Northern Silk Road’s Hexi Corridor caravan route to Tibet for over 2000 years, and was a stronghold of the Han, Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties’ resistance against nomadic attacks from the west. It is of religious significance to Muslims and Buddhists (Dongguan Mosque and Ta’er Monastery).
It is connected by the Qinghai–Tibet railway to Lhasa, Tibet and connected by a high-speed railway to Lanzhou, Gansu and Ürümqi, Xinjiang.
History. It handled timber, wool and salt in ancient times. In the late 16th century, the Kumbum Monastery was built 19 km to the southeast, establishing Xining as an important religious center for the Gelug School of Buddhists.
A major 7.6 earthquake in 1927 resulted in 40,000 deaths. Aerial bombardment by Japanese in 1941 spurred all ethnicities in Qinghai including the local Mongols and Tibetans, against the Japanese.
Economy. Woollen mills sincebefore 1957, leather, salt from the Qaidam region and iron and steelworks.
Geography. Xining is in on the eastern edge of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau on the upper reaches of the Huangshui River at an altitude of 2,200 metres (7,200 ft). Xining was an important link in the Silk Road. between the Central Plains and the western part of China and continues to be an important rail and road link to the hinterlands of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau.
Climate. Xining has also been dubbed the Summer Resort Capital of China owing to its cool summer, with a borderline cold semi-arid climate. Nights are cold or cool throughout the year. Average temperatures ranges from −7.3 °C in January to 17.4 °C in July. Rainfall falls mainly from May to September. Snow cover is very sparse due to the dry winters.
Airports: Xining (XNN)
New Guanjiao Tunnel
Qinghai Province Museum
House and Biographical Museums: Ma Bufang Mansion
Kumbum Monastery
Qinghai Science and Technology Museum
Tibetan Medicine Museum of China