Gansu

Gansu is a province of north-western China, stretching from the Loess Plateau along the narrow Hexi (Gansu) Corridor towards Xinjiang, with Lanzhou as its capital. Its eastern valleys were the early homeland of the state of Qin, and the corridor carried the Silk Road between China and Central Asia. Over the centuries it was contested by the Xiongnu, Yuezhi, Tibetans, Uyghurs and Tanguts, and many short-lived states rose there during the Sixteen Kingdoms period.