Hancheng

Some 230 kilometers away from Xi'an City, Hancheng City lies in the eastern part of Shaanxi Province and borders the Weinan area to the northeast, Heyang to the south, faces the Yellow River to the east, and adjoins to Huanglong and Yichuan counties to the northwest.

Hancheng is a cultural city with a long history. Legend has it that when the Great Yu opened up a path for the Yellow River, the ending point was just at Longmen, thus Hancheng was called Longmen in ancient times. In the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century 　 771BC), the son of King Wu was conferred the land of Han. He set up his kingdom as Han and designated Hancheng as the capital. The loess in the east of the city therefore got the name of the Han Plateau. The seat of Hancheng was Xiayang County in the Qin Dynasty (221-206BC) with its capital in the south of today's Hancheng City. In the 18th year (598) of the Kaihuang reign of the Sui Dynasty (581-618), Hancheng County was established in the site 2 kilometers away to the northwest of its present location. Hancheng enjoys its fame as the city of historical relics with lots of historic sites . The most famous ones are the Yumen Cave and the Memorial Temple for Sima Qian and the ancient city of Minimized Bejing and the Dangjia Village with primitive villages reputed as the Treasure of World Residential Houses and the Living Fossil of Human Civilization. Architectures of the Tang (618-907), Song (960-1279), Yuan (1271-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties are kept almost intact here. The tourist ring route in the east of Shaanxi Province centered on Lintong, Huaxian and Hnacheng has come into shape.

With a lot of famous persons, Hancheng was also called the hometown of literary and history. It turned out celebrities like Zhao Wu in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476BC), Wang Jie, the prime minister of the Qing Dynasty, and Du Pengcheng, the well known writer in modern times.

Endowed with a rich reserve of natural resources, Hancheng is the Bright Pearl in the Weibei area. It is the biggest pepper producer of China. The representative Red Robe wins its fame for its red color, rich flesh and pleasant fragrance.

Based on the development of the time-honored culture, Hancheng also witnessed its fast economic development. Since the exploitation of the coalfield in a large scale in the 1970s, Hancheng has become a new industrialized city in the northeast of the Guanzhong Plain.