Jiayuguan is a magical land, with its people simple, cordial and friendly. We sincerely hope more domestic and foreign friends can come here and have a look, to experience the unique landscape of the intersection between the Great Wall and Silk Road, the contrast of snow mountains and oasis, the joint of Gobi and wetland and the integration of legend and fashion. Hope you love this historical, storical and scenic land.

- Looking back to history, Jiayuguan was a military vital area. Gansu province is located at the long and narrow corridor formed by the extrusion between Loess Plateau and Inner Mongolian Plateau, with the longest segment called Hexi Corridor. Jiayuguan is at the place 15 km away from the narrowest part of the Hexi Corridor. Since the Zhou, Qin, Han and Tang Dynasties, Jiayuguan area has been not only the only way for the commercial, cultural communications among the Western Regions, Central Asia and Europe, but also the outpost and front defending other peoples from intruding on the Yellow River or coveting Central China. Jiayuguan area has witnessed many historical events of offense and defense, war and peace. For instance, the long-term battles between Xiongnu and Han Dynasty, Tibet and Tang Dynasty, the Western Xia Dynasty and Song Dynasty and Mongolia and Ming Dynasty. Hexi Corridor has provided a strategic buffer for Chang’An, Luoyang and other cities which locate at the deep Central China, and played an irreplaceable role as military barrier in safeguarding the harmony and peace of Central China, as the saying goes, “Safe in Hexi, safe in Central China”, “To protect Qinling and Long Mountains, we must consolidate Hexi; To protect Hexi, we must expand the Western Regions”. Jiayuguan is a typical one among the numerous fortresses. Its grand body connects with the southern Qilian Mountain, Taolaihe Valley and the northern Black Mountain, Grass Lake, etc., constituting an enormous defense system. Though the historical smoke of gunpowder is gone, the defense system still looks heart-stopping and could be the miracle of the world’s military defense systems.

- Exploring opening-up, Jiayuguan is a commerce and trade vital area. Commerce and trade are the bridge and link of communication. Since Emperor Wu of Western Han sending Zhangqian to the Western Regions, and “to occupy the two Guans and four counties”, Jiayuguan area has been “the vital road for other nations to offer properties to the Royal Palace and the entrance to safeguard Hexi”. This status has maintained from the time when Wusun, Yueshi, Xiongnu and other nations lived here to the period that Tibet, Uyghur and Dangxiang occupied Hexi. As the Southern Song Dynasty occupied the southeast area, the open of Maritime Silk Road and the economic center moved to southern area, the business position of Jiayuguan area declined. But it was still an important commerce and trade avenue. In Qing Dynasty, Jiayuguan is a trading port. The tea exported from Jiayuguan to Western Asian and European markets covered one to third of the whole foreign market. Till more than 100 years ago, there were nearly one thousand mansions, tea houses, wine shops, business houses, courier stations, pawnshops, temples, Taoist temples and workshops in Jiayuguan area; the envoys, merchants and camel teams of Italy, Spain, Russia, Turkey and other countries travel to and fro between inside and outside of Jiayuguan, who witnessed the the bustling scenes of visits and tradeover land and ships calling at ports on the Silk Road. The hand scroll, Map of Landscapes of Mongolia of Ming Dynasty depicts the 211 placenames of Ming Dynasty, with the farthest east origin locating at Jiayuguan.

- Retrospecting communication, Jiayuguan is a cultural highland. Jiayuguan has long history and aggregate cultural elements, with the characters of remarkable openness, inclusiveness, diversity and integration. From the perspective of national contact, as early as over 3700 years ago, the Qiang people, known as “the western sheepherders”, had lived in the Black Mountain area of Jiayuguan. The nations like Yuezhi, Wusun, Xiongnu, Wuhu, Xianbei, Tibet, Tangut, Uighur, Tujue, Tuyuhun, Mongolia had gathered at Hexi area, then started from here to all directions, to the vast world and to their respective historical missions eventually. From the perspective of cultural exchange, nomadic culture and farming culture, Central Plain culture and China's western regions culture, the Great Wall culture and Silk Road culture, religious culture and folk culture, Chinese civilization and other three civilizations had integrated in this region. The relics of prehistoric culture, Jiandu culture, Wei and Jin culture, border culture, Western Xia culture, Dunhuang culture, Wuliang culture and Ming and Qing culture can all be found in Jiayuguan. Among the Nine Ensembles of Sui and Tang Dynasty, the Western Liang Ensemble, Qiuci Ensemble, India Ensemble, Kangguo Ensemble, Shule Ensemble, Anguo Ensemble were all introduced to the Central Plains via this area, and so did with Huxuan dance, Gaochang music dance. The integration of various nations made this place a melting pot that has deep influence on the development of China and the world civilization, and improved the civilization communication between China and the other nations to an unprecedented height. Jiayuguan changed the ancients’ view towards the world completely, wrote the splendid history of human civilization and handed down the stories of historical figures like Zhangqian, Suwu, Huoqubing, Xuanzang, Kumarajiva, Sakya Pandita, Fengsheng, Zuozongtang, Lin zexu, etc.

- Looking through the present, Jiayuguan is a tourist attraction. As the poem goes, “In boundless desert lonely smokes rise straight, over endless river the sun sinks round”, Jiayuguan has various geological geomorphological forms including Gobi desert, snow mountains and glaciers, prairies and lakes, rivers and gorges, wetlands and oases, etc., and has eight A-level tourist districts, including world cultural heritage - National 5A tourist attractions represented by Jiayuguan Guancheng, Jiayuguan International Gliding Base, one of the world’s top three largest gliding bases, Grass Lake National Wetland Park and Black Mountain Cliff Painting, Mural Tombs of Wei and Jin Dynasty, Cantilever Great Wall, the First Pier of the Great Wall, the July 1 Glacier with shortest distance from city in Asia, Zixuan Wine Chateau with the largest individual wine cellar in Asia, China Peacock Garden, the largest peacock breeding base in Asia, large modern technology paradise Fantawild Adventure and other cultural, natural and scientific sceneries and spots. Noteworthily, the Black Mountain Cliff Painting has 153 paintings, in which there are 66 paintings of animals, including the 5000-years-ago megaloceros; there are more than 1800 Mural Tombs of Wei and Jin Dynasty, whose murals reflect ploughing, picking mulberry leaf, banquet, butchering pigs, slaughtering cattle, expeditions, listening music, etc. Those Mural Tombs can be called the Encyclopaedia reflecting the daily life of celebrities and folk, in which the Estafette was chose as the logo of the Postal Savings Card. There are the former site of Jiuquan Iron & Steel Group, the Iron Mountain Memorial, Yumen Oil Field, the Memorial Hall of Iron Man Wang Jinxi, the 404 Co., Ltd. of China National Nuclear Corporation, the Nuclear Industry Memorial, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre and other modern industrial tourism resources nearby.

In summary, the cultural tourism of Jiayuguan integrates the boundless universe into a city, in which the richness, depth and breadth of tourism operational types are rare in western China and even in the world. Jiayuguan attracts a lot of tourists every year to come here to appreciate the magnificent and gorgeous scenery, feel the honest and invigorating customs and taste the special delicacies. No matte in the past, present or the future, Jiayuguan is always a place to encounter history, communicate with nature and talk to life.

- Looking into the future, Jiayuguan is a spiritual treasured land. Through the thousands of years, countless explorers, soldiers, merchants, envoys, Buddhist monks, poets, scholars, officials, farmers and shepherds left their persistent footprints and wrote imperishable masterpieces in this land. They are true heroes and the master of history. They jointly created the spirit of Silk Road characterized by “peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit” and especially the Great Wall like great dragon that starts from Bohai, through mountains, deserts, Gobi, prairies, Jiayuguan, to Taolai River. The Great Wall has thousands of miles length and powerful strength, and is the safeguard for China, which fully manifests the incomparable wisdom and extraordinary and excellent creativity of our ancestors, and becomes the spirit symbol of self-motivation, righteousness, perseverance and progression of Chinese nation. For the past six hundred years, Jiayuguan has been through numerous changes and vicissitudes and still stands majestically, which is the token of Chinese civilization’s resplendence after thousands of years and ups and downs. Especially in 1958, the national large project of the “1st five Year Plan” was set in Jiayuguan. Generation after generation of Jiayuguan people took painstaking efforts and built a modern city, forming the Iron Mountain spirit of “entrepreneurship, perseverance, devotion, pioneering and advancing” and the Jiayuguan spirit of “hardworking,  exploration and innovation, openness and inclusiveness and pioneering”. This is the most valuable wealth for the city and the inexhaustible power encouraging us to struggle endlessly.

In 2013, President Xi Jinping proposed the Belt and Road Initiative, integrated the ancient with the modern and connected the domestic and the abroad, endowing the ancient silk routes with new times connotation and carrying the dream of prosperity of the countries along the Silk Road, who has acquired extensive recognition and active responses. As the node city on the golden segment of the Silk Road, Jiayuguan will devote the efforts to policy communication, industry intercommunication, culture integration, finance circulation, facility connection, and pull our efforts to build regional center city and the strategic pivot city of the Belt and Road that relies on the Silk Road, connects four provinces, spreads into Middle Asia, and possesses distinctive characteristics, so as to make contribution to building a road of peace, prosperity, openness, innovation and civilization and to propelling the construction of the Belt and Road.

- To build a city along the Silk Road in aspect of city image. Image is strength and resource. We will use the policies like Chinese Civilization Inheritance and Innovation Zone, Silk Road (Dunhuang) International Cultural Expo, etc., based on platforms like Jiayuguan Silk Road Culture Research Institute (Great Wall), to strengthen the cooperation with domestic and overseas academic institutions, specialist and scholars. By mutually establishing institutions, sending personnel, publishing magazines and monographs, supporting monographic researches, holding high-level forums, arranging well the Great Wall Museum, developing films and television programs, and developing cultural creative industry and other flexible forms, we will further propel the research, illustration and dissemination of Silk Road culture and Great Wall culture, propel the aggregation, integration and sedimentation of Silk Road culture and Great Wall culture, so as to build Jiayuguan into the cultural and creative city park of Silk Road.

- To build a new city of Gobi in aspect of spanning development. The development history of Jiayuguan is of typical significance in western China and even around China. In the 1950s, Jiayuguan was still a boundless desert. Since the construction of JISCO and the city in 1958, and 1965 respectively, with the efforts of people of the whole city, a new modern city with advanced plan and distinctive characteristics has risen straight from the ground. By 2016, the construction land area is 67 sq km; the urbanization rate is 93.4 percent; the GDP per capita reaches 9,300 dollars, which is higher than the provincial, national average; and the disposable income per capita ranks the first in Gansu province. In recent years, Jiayuguan has been awarded successively 17 state-level city cards including Top Tourist City of China, National Health City, National Landscape Garden City, etc. Especially after the proposal of constructing civilized city in 1995, through 22 years unremitting efforts, the construction of infrastructure, cause of people's livelihood and spiritual civilization have made historic progress; the masses’ sense of gain, happiness and safety have been increased remarkably. Jiayuguan succeeded in constructing National Civilized City on Nov. 14 this year and now is endeavoring to construct National Ecological Garden City, National Food Safety Demonstration City, National Demonstration City for Quality Safety of Agricultural Products and National Leisure and Sports City. Jiayuguan will continue to take the lead in western cities and western development and spare no effort to build “a city with the shadow of world-class city”.

- To develop a industrial strong city in aspect of industrial transformation. Jiayuguan, which was built due to enterprises, on the edge of mines and thrived thanks to steel, after 60 years of development, has become the largest production base of iron and steel industry in northwest region. Industry is the basic for strengthening city and the source for enriching the people. We will open our eyes to the Belt and Road, give full play to the advantage of geographical location, industrial base and resource endowment, and, led by new development philosophy; we will stick to the requirements of supply-side structural reform to construct a diversified, green and modern industrial system with city and industry integration; we will reform and improve the traditional productivity. And in respect of the two hundreds of billions level industry chains: steel, aluminum, and led by market requirements; we will eliminate outdated capacities, supplement the product short board with extending chain, supplementing chain and strengthening chain and promote manufacturing industry to stride forward to mid-to-high end with the orientation of the rise of value chain; we will deepen the cooperation of international productivity, develop steel for building structure, steel for bridge, steel for nuclear power, high precision aluminium alloy, architecture aluminum profile, aluminium for rail transport and other advanced structural materials and new environment-friendly materials; we will continue to expand home appliances, cars, communication, special boats and other industry fields. We will cultivate and expand strategic emerging industries, optimize innovative layout, and build 28 national and provincial technology center, laboratories and pilot enterprises, cultivate four national, provincial intellectual property advantage enterprises and succeed in building the pilot city of national intellectual property; we will propel the equipment manufacture, implement multifunctional dedicated automobile project with productivity of 100,000 trucks per year for garbage clearance, cold-chain logistics, light and heavy trucks and other finished automobile production capacities; we will build supporting Sino-Germany institution and training and  HWK Examination Center of Vehicle Inspection, Test and Maintenance for Middle Asia and Middle East markets; we will establish six “industrial park in parks” of multi-purpose vehicle, new energy, high and new technology, military and civilian integration, eco-environment protection and e-business logistics. Nidificating for attracting phoenix, we will attract and expand investment comprehensively, so as to construct a proper environment for attracting major projects.

- To create a famous tourist city in aspect of culture and tourism integration. Tourism is the pillar industry and strategic industry of Jiayuguan. From January to October this year, the number of tourists of the whole city is 8.066 million and the tourism revenue reaches RMB 5.38 billion, with the growth rates being 21.3 percent and 27.2 percent respectively. Jiayuguan was successfully selected as the national tourism demonstration area and pilot city and won the title of The Most Competitive Tourism City for Investment in 2017. Guancheng culture and tourism characteristic town was inscribed as the second patch characteristic town. We will take the cultural tourism industry as the important engine for transformation and development, take the construction of national tourism demonstration area as gripper to make break through in culture and business, industry and products, resources and capital, and other fields. We will mainly introduce journey of learning and research, hiking expedition, culture and entertainment, recovery of historical cultural streets, summering and holidaying, health and relaxation, exhibition and expo, and other various cultural tourism forms, and construct culture and tourism, culture and expo, culture and innovation, culture and education, culture and entertainment, culture and sports and other diversified cultural industry system. Specifically speaking, it is to build a “mainstay” to propel the five projects of Guancheng scenic area with a total investment of RMB 9.7 billion yuan, which includes Silk Road Cultural Expo, World Cultural Heritage Park, Yuquan Ancient Street and Town, Cultural Creative Park, etc.; we will make great efforts to “three main domains”, namely the historical culture domain represented by Guancheng, etc., modern experience domain represented by Fantawild Adventure, etc. and ecological leisure domain represented by Grass Lake National Wetland Park, etc.; we will propel “series of projects”, including Guancheng culture and tourism, Wenshu aviation, grass lake ecology, desert hot spring, celebration attendance ancient town, and the Gobi Grand Gorge Geological Park, Grass Lake National Wetland Park, RV campground, Black Mountain Cliff Painting Expo Park, Aviation Expo Park and other major projects; we will conduct “diversified activities”, pursue culture first, industry form first and activity first, launch the “Three Cultural Projects”, namely Silk Road Tole Painting Art with two meter height and 500 meter length that manifests 252 domestic and abroad, sea-land silk road figures, 23 Jiayuguan Culture Series and the documentary film, Hexi Corridor: Jiayuguan. And we will hold 32 major festival competitions in 2018, including the Opening Ceremony and International Travel Business Conference of the 8th Dunhuang Tour Silk Road International Tourism Festival, the 7th China (Jiayuguan) International Short Film Festival, the 3rd Silk Road (Jiayuguan) International RV EXPO, the 2nd Silk Road (Jiayuguan) International Music Festival, the 1st Jiayuguan P.K.O World Cup and other festival competitions. We will continue to cultivate multilevel culture forum and enlarge outward cultural communication and dissemination, so as to build Jiayuguan into an international tourism city.

- To construct an ecological green city in aspect of habitability and enterprise-adaptability. Jiayuguan is located in northwest inland, with the annual natural precipitation of 85.3 millimeter, evaporation of 2,149 millimeter and distinctive arid Gobi characteristics. Ecological virescence is a project of vital and lasting importance and a life project. After generations of efforts, the Green Ratio of the urbanized area of Jiayuguan city has reached 39.4 percent, the public park green area per capita has reached 35.9 sq meter. 13 artificial lakes were built, with the water area per capita reaching 27 sq meter. In 2016, Jiayuguan was inscribed as the National Landscape Garden City. We have strengthened efforts in environment protection. Last year, there were 315 day with excellent air quality, with a excellent ratio of 86.1 percent and comprehensive index ranking the first in Gansu province. Jiayuguan has been rated as the most potential green city for living and investing, and has attracted nearly 100,000 people from the 404 Co., Ltd. of China National Nuclear Corporation, the Longrui Technology Co., Ltd. of China National Nuclear Corporation and Jiayuguan Railway Marshalling of Station Lanzhou Railway Bureau to build living base in Jiauyuguan. We will persist in advancing the “build city via ecological environment” strategy, comprehensively improve the quality of landscaping, further propel the problem-addressing action of atmosphere, soil and water. We will establish river chief system and lake chief system in city, town and village levels, protect the seven rivers and 14 lakes and reservoirs to build an ecological Xiongguan with blue sky, green land and clean water.

- To cultivate a large transportation city in aspect of interconnection and intercommunication. Jiayuguan is the vital entrance for inland people to enter Sinkiang and Middle Asia and the important transfer place to New Eurasian Land Bridge. With the G30 highway passing through its whole area, Jiayuguan Railway Station is the second largest railway marshalling station in Gansu. There are 202 couples trains passing by Jiayuguan, in which 155 trains are goods trains, and 23 couples are bullet trains. We have realized normalized operation for “Jiayuguan” International Block Train; Jiayuguan Airport is the second largest airport in Gansu and has opened 16 air lines like Jiayuguan-Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, etc. The 13th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Modern Comprehensive Transportation System issued by the State Council stipulates in February this year that Jiayuguan is the national comprehensive transportation junction and an important node on the 9th vertical of the Ten vertical and Ten Horizontal of China. We will grasp this significant opportunity. On the one hand, we will arrange “Two Cities and Three Airports” by building airport economic zone new town and HSR new town, and build modern intellectual airport, land port and information port. We will take the initiative to prepare for setting up office in China-kazakhstan Horgos International Border Cooperation Center to gather people flow, material flow, capital flow, information flow for junction economy, and to broaden the breadth and depth of opening-up. On the other hand, we will accelerate efforts in “Five Major Projects”, and implement the Three-Dimensional Comprehensive Transportation System including international airport, airport reorganization and expansion, railway logistics park,  international trade and logistics park, comprehensive passenger terminal. We will establish three-dimensional transportation system including united transportation of railways and highways, joint transportation of land and aviation, effective connection of highway with provincial road and local road, to form a “grand cross” comprehensive three dimensional transportation junction that connects Gansu, Sinkiang, Qinghai and Inner Mongolia. We will break through the access to western area, the aviation among Sinkiang, Middle Asia and China Mainland, and the land transportation, to improve comprehensively the city’s accessibility capacity and radiation effects. We will propel the prosperity and development of logistics and other productive service industries, to build Jiayuguan into the transport node, culture fulcrum and tourism height on the Silk Road.