The seventh-largest administrative district by area at 453700 km2, Gansu lies between the Tibetan and Loess plateaus and borders Mongolia (Govi-Altai Province), Inner Mongolia and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south and Shaanxi to the east.
- GansuThe Xiongnu were also active in areas now part of Siberia, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Xinjiang.
- XiongnuXinjiang also borders the Tibet Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai.
- XinjiangThe Yuezhi originally lived in the very western part of Gansu until they were forced to emigrate by the Xiongnu around 177 BCE.
- GansuNomadic tribes such as the Yuezhi, Saka, and Wusun were probably part of the migration of Indo-European speakers who had settled in western Central Asia long before the Xiongnu and Han Chinese.
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Silk Road
2 linksNetwork of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century.
Network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century.
The southern stretches of the Silk Road, from Khotan (Xinjiang) to Eastern China, were first used for jade and not silk, as long as 5000 BCE, and is still in use for this purpose.
These mummified remains may have been of people who spoke Indo-European languages, which remained in use in the Tarim Basin, in the modern day Xinjiang region, until replaced by Turkic influences from the Xiongnu culture to the north and by Chinese influences from the eastern Han dynasty, who spoke a Sino-Tibetan language.
The expansion of Scythian cultures, stretching from the Hungarian plain and the Carpathian Mountains to the Chinese Kansu Corridor, and linking the Middle East with Northern India and the Punjab, undoubtedly played an important role in the development of the Silk Road.
Tang dynasty
2 linksImperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705.
Imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an interregnum between 690 and 705.
However, the Tang did manage to restore at least indirect control over former Tang territories as far west as the Hexi Corridor and Dunhuang in Gansu.
While the Turks were settled in the Ordos region (former territory of the Xiongnu), the Tang government took on the military policy of dominating the central steppe.
In fact, it was during this rebellion that the Tang withdrew its western garrisons stationed in what is now Gansu and Qinghai, which the Tibetans then occupied along with the territory of what is now Xinjiang.
Yuezhi
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The Yuezhi were an ancient people first described in Chinese histories as nomadic pastoralists living in an arid grassland area in the western part of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during the 1st millennium BC. After a major defeat at the hands of the Xiongnu in 176 BC, the Yuezhi split into two groups migrating in different directions: the Greater Yuezhi (Dà Yuèzhī 大月氏) and Lesser Yuezhi (Xiǎo Yuèzhī 小月氏).
They have thus placed the original homeland of the Yuezhi 1,000 km further northwest in the grasslands to the north of the Tian Shan (in the northern part of modern Xinjiang).
Hexi Corridor
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The Hexi Corridor (, Xiao'erjing: حْسِ ظِوْلاْ, IPA: Help:IPA/Mandarin), also known as the Gansu Corridor, is an important historical region located in the modern western Gansu province of China.
Later, the newly risen Xiongnu armies under Modu Chanyu vanquished and expelled the Yuezhi, and established a dominant confederacy empire during the Chu-Han contention and the early Han dynasty.
It was during this rebellion that the Tang withdrew its western garrisons stationed in what is now Gansu and Qinghai, which the Tibetans then occupied along with the area that is modern Xinjiang.