Xi'an City History

Xi'an is located in central China, between the Qinling Mountains in the south and the Weihe river in the north. City is located on a major rail route which runs from Lianyungang in the Yellow Sea via Urumqi in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region and Kazakhstan.


	Xi'an has direct rail connections with the city of Beijing and Shanghai, and flights to most large Chinese towns as well as Hong Kong. Xi'an has centers textiles, where cotton grown in the artificially irrigated, which is treated and processed. Xi'an posseesses items of archaeological interest than any other town in China, perhaps the most famous Terra-cotta Warriors, with 1,700,000 foreign and domestic visitors.

The Tang dynasty built its capital Chang'an, situated to 7km north-west of where Xi'an lies nowadays. Its defensive walls, 22km/14 miles in length, with 12 gates and each with 3 entrances.

The main gate was reserved exclusively for the use of the Emperor. The north side of the wall is formed rather like the Ursa Major constellation & the south side like Ursa Minor. The city was served by 8 eight main steets and 160 side streets together with large numbers of palaces and an good drainage and sewage system using pentragonal clay pipes.

On the excavation place, in addition to the remains of the city walls to the south-west, the tourist can still see a large mound of earth (remains of the Han imperial residence, the Palace of Weiyang), where legends have been woven.

In the Tang era (618-907) what is now Xi'an formed a part of Chang'an, which at that moment was 37km in circumference and had a population of 1,000,000 or so.

The city was divide into 2 parts, The inner embraced the northern district with the imperial palace and the southern with the seats of administration and government, while the outer part, lying to the east, west & south of the inner districts, was where the ordinary people lived.

Its 25 main streets were lined with several shops, markets and workshops. Archaeological research indicates that the western section of the city wall was 2656m/2920yd long, the northern 1135m/1248yd and the eastern (divided into 3 sections) 2610m/2870yd.