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About the city of Zhangye
Zhangye, known as Ganzhou in ancient times, is the granary of the Hexi Corridor and a national-level historic and cultural city. Marco Polo once stayed there for a year. The city is known for the world's largest indoor statue of Sleeping Buddha and the Yugur folklore that one cannot find anywhere else.
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| Zhangye city |
During the Ming period, Zhangye was an important garrison town for soldiers guarding the Great Wall, and today the road from Wuwei to Zhangye is still a good place from which to view the Wall, visible for a large part of the way as a slightly sad and crumbling line of mud ramparts. Initially it runs to the north of the road, until, quite dramatically, the road suddenly cuts right through a hole in the Wall and continues on the other side.
Although Zhangye is not generally an attractive town, there are a number of places that offer at least a day of sight-seeing. The center of the town is marked, as in many Chinese towns, by a Gulou(Drum Tower) at the crossroads. The tower, built in the Ming dynasty (1507), has two tiers and houses a massive bronze bell. The four streets radiating out from here, Bei jie, Dong Jie, Nan Jie and Xi Jie, are named after their respective compass points, and most of the sights are in the southwest of town in the vicinity of the Zhangye Hotel.
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| Rural Zhangye |
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