Shanxi

Shaanxi is an inland province in Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), Ningxia (NW), and Inner Mongolia (N).

Shaanxi covers an area of over 205,000 km2 (79,151 sq mi) with about 37 million people, the 16th largest in China. Xi’an – which includes the sites of the former Chinese capitals Fenghao and Chang’an – is the provincial capital as well as the largest city in Northwest China and also one of the oldest cities in China and the oldest of the Four Great Ancient Capitals, being the capital for the Western Zhou, Western Han, Jin, Sui and Tang dynasties. Xianyang, which served as the Qin dynasty capital, is just north across Wei River. The other prefecture-level cities into which the province is divided are Ankang, Baoji, Hanzhong, Shangluo, Tongchuan, Weinan, Yan’an and Yulin.

Along with areas of adjacent Shanxi and Henan provinces, it formed the cradle of the Chinese civilization. In the Republican era of China, the city of Yan’an was near the endpoint of the Long March by the Chinese Red Army, who fled from Jiangxi after the Chinese Soviet Republic were destroyed by the Kuomintang armies, and became the birthplace of the Chinese Communist Revolution from late 1935 to early 1947 and the Communists formed the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region in constituent parts of Shaanxi.