Gansu lies between Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, and the Huangtu Plateaus, and borders Mongolia to the north. The Huang He river passes the southern part of the province.

Proud of its long history, Ganzu is one of the cradles of Chinese ancient civilization. It is the birthplace of Fu Xi, the Chinere ancestor well known for its great inventions in Eight-digram, charcters and calendar. The initial farming also appeared here in earlier Zhou period, 3000 years agao. The cultural relics in Ganzu fall mainly into the Neolithic culture, the Yellow River culture, and the Great Wall culture representing the history of the civilization of the Chinese people for 8000 year. Meanwhiel, the Silk Road culture in Ganzu has drawn attention from other parts.

Gansu has always been a must along Silk Road, and an important thoroughfare of culture and trade between China and the west. Over the past 2000 year, from the loess plateau in the east to the Gobi-desert in the west, there had been groups of famous figures like envoy Zhang Qian, mond Xuan Zang and Marco Polo advancing through mountains and over rivers.

Gansu is reputed as the Golden Section along the road, and regarded as "The Hometown of Grotto Arts." The most popular ones are Mogao Grattoes, Maijiashan Grottoes and Bingling Si Grottoes. In addition, there are many attractive historical sites along the Silk Road, such as temples, monasteries, Great Wall, towers, pagodas, tablets and ancient castles. The majestic and charming natural sceneary in Gansu, include the endliess plateau prairie, vast expanse of Gobi-desert, magnificent loess plateau and grotesque Danxia landform as well as snow-capped mountains.

Gansu Province is rich in mixed cultures of Budddhism, Islam, Christiannity, Confucionism and Taoism due to its position along the Silk Rroad , therefrom many religious cultureal relics have become major component of the Silk Road cultur, and ethnic groups like Tibetan, Hui, Yugur and Mongolian carry onecivilization and their colorful folklore will enliven the Silk Road tour.

However, most of Gansu's economy is based on mining and the extraction of minerals, especially rare earth elements. The province has significant deposits of antimony, chromium, coal, cobalt, copper, fluorite, gypsum, iridium, iron, lead, limestone, mercury, mirabilite, nickel, crude oil, platinum, troilite, tungsten, and zinc, among others. The oil fields at Yumen and Changqing are considered significant.

Industries other than mining include electricity generation, petrochemicals, oil exploration machinery and building materials.

According to some sources, the province is also a center of China's nuclear industry.

Its nominal GDP for 2003 was about 130.5 billion RMB (15.7 billion USD) and per capita of 5010 RMB (605 USD).

Jiayuguan Pass, in Jiayuguan city, is the largest and most intact pass, or entrance, of the Great Wall. Jiayuguan Pass was built in the late Ming dynasty, somewhere around the year 1372. It was built near an oasis that was then on the extreme western edge of China. Jiayuguan Pass was the first pass on the west end of the great wall so it earned the name “The First And Greatest Pass Under Heaven.” Legend goes that the official in charge asked the designer to calculate how many bricks would be used. The designer gave him the number and when the project was finished, only one brick was left. It was put on the top of the pass as a symbol of commemoration. This legend explained the reason for the extra brick at the top of the Jiayuguan Pass.

Mogao Grottoes

The Mogao Grottoes near Dunhuang represent an astonishing collection of Buddhist art and religion. Originally there were 1,000 grottoes, but now only 492 cave temples remain. Each temple has a large statue of a buddha or bodhisattva and paintings of religious scenes. In the year AD 336 a monk named Le Zun (Lo-tsun) came near Echoing Sand Mountain, when he had a vision of golden rays of light shining down on him like a thousand Buddhas. Le Zun started to carve the first grotto to memorize the incident. During the Five Dynasties period they ran out of room on the cliff and could not build anymore grottoes. Now they have started to find old paintings that were painted over in the Five Dynasties.

Silk Road And Dunhuang City

The historic Silk Road starts in Chang'an and goes to Constantinople. On the way merchants would go to Dunhaung in Gansu. In Dunhaung they would get fresh camels, food and guards for the journey around the dangerous Takla Makan shamo (desert). Before departing Dunhaung they would pray to the Mogao Grottoes for a safe journey, if they came back alive they would thank the gods at the grottoes. Across the desert they would form a train of camels to protect themselves from thieving bandits. The next stop, Kashi (Kashgar), was a welcome sight to the merchants. At Kashi most would trade and go back and the ones who stayed would eat fruit and trade their bactrian camels for single humped ones. After Kashi they would keep going until they reached their next destination.

Magoa grottoes

Situated at a strategic point along the Silk Route, at the crossroads of trade as well as religious, cultural and intellectual influences, the 492 cells and cave sanctuaries in Mogao are famous for their statues and wall paintings, spanning 1,000 years of Buddhist art.

Within China, Gansu is known for its pulled noodles, and Muslim restaurants which feature authentic Gansu cuisine are common in most major Chinese cities.

A Tibetan folk song is sung like this: Xiangbala is easy to access, it is our hometown……there is a beautiful place ,where has no sufferings, no sorrow but a serene prairie all the year round with birds singing and flowers fragrant, legend says it is the place the immortals live……the terrestrial paradise in the world described in this song is located in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, a place reputed as“Small Tibet” in the south of Gansu.