Urban of Ancient Chine: Xi’an City
1. Physical Geography and History of Development
The name of Xi’an city reflects its relative location in China. Literally, Xi’an means “peace in the west” in Chinese and it located in the central west part of China in the Wei River valley with Qinling Mountains in the South and Loess Plateau in the North. The Wei River has its source in the mountainous area in Western China and flows eastward into the Yellow River. The Wei River valley was largely formed by the deposition of loess that washed off the plateau to the north (G. Brent Hall and Ji Dong Zhang, 116). The climate in this area is temperate and humid. The spring and early summer are the dry time and most of the precipitation is between May and October. The fertile and abundance of arable lands together with the temperate climate gave birth to the early Chinese civilization and the rise of Zhou people, who established their reign in northern China.

Later, China was divvied into seven independent states, thus entering the Warring States Period (476B.C. ~ 221B.C.). Xi’an, as the capital of Qin, has great advantage in terms of national security. Surrounded by mountains and hills, Xi’an was only able to be reached by forces from Northern China Plain by entering the narrow pass near the confluence of Wei River and Yellow River. According to Chinese history document, Shi Ji, literally means “Historical Records”, the other six states launched two separate joint operations against Qin’s expansion (318B.C. and 241B.C.). Both times the armies of six states were defeated by Qin’s soldiers near the pass. Because of the geography location and topography, Xi’an was protected from wartime destruction, thus it possessed economic and population advantage over other cities in China during the Qin Dynasty (221B.C. ~207B.C.).

It was during the Han Dynasty (202B.C. ~220A.D.) and Tang