The Northwest
西北
The Silk Road: desert, oasis, Buddhist caves and Central Asian bazaars.
Photo: xiquinhosilva · CC BY 2.0
Head west from Xi'an and China thins out into the Hexi Corridor, a 1,000 km ribbon of oases between the Qilian snows and the Gobi. This was the Silk Road, and it left the painted caves of Dunhuang, the ruined watchtowers of the Han frontier, and — beyond, in Xinjiang — a Turkic, Muslim, lamb-and-noodle culture that feels closer to Samarkand than to Shanghai.
Provinces & regions: Gansu · Ningxia · Qinghai · Xinjiang
Best time to go: May to October. Winter is severe; August is peak season in Xinjiang.
05Covered in depth
5 destinations in this region
UNESCO
Jiayuguan Fort 嘉峪关
Where the Great Wall ends: a Ming fortress in the desert, between a snow range and the Gobi, that marked the edge of the civilised world.
Kashgar 喀什
Closer to Baghdad than to Beijing: a Uyghur oasis city where the Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan ranges meet.
UNESCO
Mogao Caves & Dunhuang 莫高窟与敦煌
Four hundred and ninety-two painted caves in a desert cliff — a thousand years of Buddhist art, sealed and forgotten for nine centuries.
Qinghai Lake & Chaka 青海湖与茶卡盐湖
China's largest lake, saline and 3,200 metres up, ringed by rapeseed fields that turn the shore yellow every July.
UNESCO
Zhangye Danxia 张掖丹霞
Hills striped in red, orange, yellow and green — twenty-four million years of mineral sediment tilted on its side.
+Also worth knowing
12 more from the full index
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Turpan吐鲁番 UNESCO Xinjiang
154 m below sea level, 48°C in summer: the ruined cities of Jiaohe and Gaochang, Buddhist caves, and 5,000 km of underground karez irrigation.
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Kanas Lake喀纳斯 Xinjiang
Siberian larch and birch around a milky-blue lake in the Altai, with Tuvan villages. Golden and spectacular in late September.
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Sayram Lake & Yili赛里木湖与伊犁 Xinjiang
An alpine lake at 2,070 m and the Ili valley's lavender fields and Kazakh grasslands, at their best in June.
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Urumqi & Heavenly Lake天山天池 UNESCO Xinjiang
A glacial lake below the 5,445 m Bogda Peak, an hour from the regional capital, with Kazakh yurt stays.
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Labrang Monastery拉卜楞寺 Gansu
One of the six great Gelugpa monasteries, with the world's longest prayer-wheel corridor and a large monastic population.
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Maijishan Grottoes麦积山石窟 UNESCO Gansu
194 caves of painted clay sculpture on a haystack-shaped cliff, reached by vertigo-inducing external walkways.
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Bingling Temple炳灵寺 UNESCO Gansu
Grottoes reached only by boat across the Yellow River reservoir, with a 27-metre Tang Maitreya.
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Zhagana扎尕那 Gansu
A Tibetan village in a natural limestone amphitheatre — 'stone box' — with terraced barley and serious trekking.
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Sand Lake & Shapotou沙湖与沙坡头 Ningxia
Where the Tengger desert meets the Yellow River: dune sledging, sheepskin-raft crossings and reed-bed birdlife.
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Western Xia Tombs西夏王陵 Ningxia
Nine eroded earthen mausoleums of a kingdom Genghis Khan erased, standing alone under the Helan Mountains.
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Chaka & Yadan察尔汗与雅丹 Qinghai
Salt flats and wind-carved yardang badlands in the Qaidam basin, including the 'Emerald Lake' potash ponds.
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Tulufan Bezeklik Caves柏孜克里克 Xinjiang
Uyghur-era Buddhist caves in a red desert gorge, their murals largely removed to Berlin and destroyed in 1945.