Holiday in Lanzhou

What makes Lanzhou special as a destination?

Lanzhou is the capital of Gansu Province and is the only Chinese provincial capital located directly on the Yellow River (Huang He), which winds through a narrow valley between barren loess hills. The city has been a key post on the Silk Road for thousands of years — the bridge between the Chinese heartland and the vastness of Central Asia. Lanzhou is world-famous for its hand-pulled noodles: Lanzhou Lamian is the national dish of the city, where skilled chefs pull the dough into thin noodles in seconds. There are over 1,000 noodle restaurants in Lanzhou alone, and the preparation was recognized as an intangible cultural heritage in 2021. A morning bowl of beef noodles is a sacred ritual of the city. The Zhongshan Bridge (Iron Bridge) from 1907 was the first permanent bridge over the Yellow River and is now a landmark. A cable car on the southern riverbank leads to Baitashan (White Pagoda Mountain), from whose summit one enjoys a panoramic view of the entire city and the river valley. The Gansu Provincial Museum houses the famous Bronze Flying Horse (Ma Ta Feiyan) from the Han Dynasty — one of China's most well-known archaeological artifacts and the official symbol of Chinese tourism. Trains and buses to the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, the Rainbow Mountain Zhangye Danxia, and the Labrang Monastery depart from Lanzhou — Lanzhou is the gateway to Gansu, one of the most fascinating and least visited provinces in China.