Experience the best of Zhangye

Zhangye is an oasis city in the middle of the Hexi Corridor, in Gansu province, a long strip of farmland between the Qilian Mountains and the deserts to the north. It was a Silk Road garrison and market town for more than two thousand years, and its old centre has a drum tower and the Great Buddha Temple, which holds a reclining Buddha more than thirty metres long.

Outside the city, the Zhangye Danxia National Geopark has hills banded in red, orange, yellow and white, formed from layers of sandstone and tilted by uplift. Mati Temple, a set of Buddhist cave temples, lies in the foothills of the Qilian Mountains, whose snow peaks and high pastures line the southern horizon.

Noodles in lamb broth, cold liangpi noodles dressed with chilli and vinegar, and sesame flatbreads are the everyday meals. The irrigated fields around the city grow wheat, maize and vegetables. The geopark hills are most vivid at sunrise and sunset, and summer to early autumn is the usual season.