Jiayuguan with a history of more than 600 years, is an important city of tourism on the ancient Silk Road. It used to be an important pass in ancient times.. It lies in the Gobi desert, at the middle of Hexi Corridor, 776 kilometers away from Lanzhou and 5 - 6 hours away by bus from Dunhuang.
These simple merchant accomodations eventually gave way to better and more permanent accomodations, and since overnighting guests require various goods and services, a community of requisite service personnel dedicated to serving the needs of the traveller settled in the vicinity of the pass, and they of course eventually required better and more permanent housing. All of this called for provisionment not only for the travellers, but also for the service personnel who saw to their needs, so gradually, a small city arose as an auxiliary function of the pass.
