Silk Road

Gansu, China

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Gansu Province is the beating heart of the ancient Silk Road in China—a rugged, storied corridor where camel caravans once carried silk, spices, and ideas between East and West. Stretching across arid deserts, rainbow-colored mountains, and fertile oases, Gansu was a vital artery linking imperial China to Central Asia and beyond.

The province’s most iconic Silk Road site is Dunhuang, home to the Mogao Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage treasure trove of Buddhist art and manuscripts. These grottoes, carved into desert cliffs, hold over a thousand years of murals, sculptures, and sacred texts—an astonishing fusion of Indian, Persian, and Chinese influences.

Further west lies Jiayuguan, the western terminus of the Great Wall, where a mighty fortress once guarded the empire’s edge. Travelers would pass through its gates into the vast Hexi Corridor, a narrow strip of land flanked by mountains and desert that funneled Silk Road traffic through towns like Zhangye, famed for its Danxia landforms—striking, multicolored sandstone hills that look like a painter’s palette spilled across the earth.