General Information of Gansu Province

General Information of Gansu Province

Gansu General Information

Gasu Province is located in the upper reaches of the Yellow River and in the north-western China. It got its name from the abbreviations of Ganzhou (now Zhangye City) and Suzhou (now Jiuguan City). It occupies an area of over 390.000 square kilometres and has a population of 25.62 million with lanzhou as its provincial capital.


Location of Gansu Province
Gansu Climate
 It has a transitional climate from south-eastern monsoon area to inland arid area and Qingzang cold area, temperature and rainfall change greatly.

Gansu Local Products
It is the nation's important base of nonferrous metal, electric power, engineering, wool spinning and unclear. Wheat and coarse cereals is its main crop. The local and special
products include honey dew melon, lily and black melon seeds in Lanzhou; day lily in Qingyang and Chinese prickly ash in Wen County, ancient carpet, luminous wine glass.
 

 Famed Silk Road grottoes in China get fewer visitors amid financial crisis

The global financial crisis has slashed the number of tourists to Dunhuang, a Silk Road city and home to historic Buddhist grottoes, city tourism bureau chief Gong Ying said on Monday.

Gong said domestic tourist arrivals were likely to decline 30 percent this year, with those of foreigners down 40 percent.

Dunhuang, in northwest China's Gansu Province, had 1.4 million tourists last year, including 100,000 from overseas.

Gong said major natural disasters, such as prolonged snow early in the year and the devastating earthquake in May, had also affected tourism.

"We are not optimistic about the market next year, as the financial crisis is worsening," he said.


The Mogao Grottoes, a UN-listed World Heritage site known as the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas, received fewer than 100 tourists daily, compared with an average of 1,500 per day last year, the official added.

 Gong said the bureau will tap the Taiwan market next year, to take advantage of cross-Strait direct air and sea services that began earlier this month amid warming ties.

 A 261 million yuan (about 38 million U.S. dollars) rehabilitation project began on Monday to protect the fragile ancient paintings and sculptures.