Gansu

Spanning 453,700 square kilometers between the Tibetan and Loess plateaus, this northwestern Chinese province served as the historic heartland of the Qin state and a critical segment of the Northern Silk Road. Its capital, Lanzhou, anchors a diverse region where the Yellow River flows through a landscape marked by the Gobi Desert, the Qilian Mountains, and significant ethnic minorities including the Hui and Dongxiang.