Meaning of the name
"Thieves' Mountain West". Technically, the name of Shaanxi should be spelled exactly the same as that of the neighboring province of Shanxi ("Mountain West"), but the extra "a" is added to indicate a tonal difference that would otherwise require a special accent to be printed above the single "a".

Geographical location
An inland province along the middle reaches of the Yellow River and a gateway to northwest China, Shaanxi links the west with the east and connects the north with the south. The Eurasia Continental Bridge, an international economic link starting from Lianyungang in the east and ending in Rotterdam, Netherlands, traverses through the province. It borders Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and the provinces of Shanxi, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan and Gansu. The province has an area of 205,600 square kilometers. It measures 1,000 kilometers from north to south and 360 kilometers from west to east.

Capital: Xi'an

Major Cities: Xi'an, Xianyang, Baoji, Hanzhong, Tongchuan, Yan'an.

Neighboring Areas: Shanxi, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan, and Gansu Provinces; Ningxia Hui and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regions

Attractions in Shaanxi

Population:
36.58 million (2001).

Population growth rate: 4.16¡ë.

Ethnicity:
The Han ethnic group accounts for 99.4 percent of the total. Other groups include the Hui, the Manchu and the Mongolian. The population density is 174 persons per square km.

Literacy (the year 1998):
Primary-school graduates: 13.8 million (male: 6.93 million; female: 6.87 million)
Junior-middle-school graduates: 10.06 million (male: 5.68 million; female: 4.38 million)
Senior-middle-school graduates: 3.71 million (male: 2.14 million; female: 1.57 million)
University and college graduates: 854,000 (male: 531,000; female: 323,000)

Total population of age 15 and over: 25.92 million (male: 13.12 million; female: 12.8 million)

Those who cannot read or write: 4.28 million (male: 1.37 million; female: 2.91 million), or 16.52 percent of the total population of age 15 and over (male: 10.45 percent; female: 22.74 percent).

Elevation:
The province has three distinctive landforms from north to south. The Loess Plateau in the north has an elevation of 800-1,300 meters, and accounts for 45 percent of the total area of the province. The Central Shaanxi Plain in the middle averages an elevation of 520 meters. The Qinling and Daba mountainous areas in the south include the Qinling Mountains, Daba Mountains, and Hanjiang River Valley, accounting for 36 percent of the total area of the province. The Qinling Mountains measures 1,000-3,000 meters in elevation and the Daba Mountains in the southernmost of the province, 1,500-2,000 meters.

Mountains: the Qinling Range is an important geographical divide between northern and southern China and the major watershed of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers

Rivers: Yellow River, along the northeastern border; Luohe, Jinghe and Weihe Rivers, which are tributaries of the Yellow River

Climate:
Temperate, semi-arid, monsoonal climate in the north changes to subtropical, humid, monsoonal climate in the south

Average Temperature: -11C to 3.5C in January, 21C to 28C in July

Annual Average Rainfall: 400 - 1,000 mm; precipitation highest in the southern mountain areas, lowest along the northern border; most of the rain falls occurs from July to September

Natural Resources:
Minerals:
So far, 91 kinds of minerals have been found in the province, 58 of which have deposits ranking among the top ten in China. The reserves and output of gold rank fifth and fourth respectively. The output of molybdenum amounts to half of the country¡¯s total. The proved deposits of coal, the most abundant mineral in the province, come to 161.8 billion tons. The Shenmu-Fugu Coalfield in northern Shaanxi has reserves of 134 billion tons. It is one of the best fields in the world because of its thick coal layer and easy access and exploitation. In addition, northern Shaanxi has a gas field with proved reserves of 350 billion cubic meters.

Hydropower:
North of the Qinling Mountains is the Yellow River system, composed of the Weihe, Jinghe, Luohe, and Wuding rivers. South of the mountains is the Yangtze River system consisting of the Hanjiang, Danjiang, and Jialing rivers. The Hanjiang River, the largest river in the province, provides more than half of the province¡¯s total water runoff. Shaanxi has an annual water runoff of 42.6 billion cubic meters, which has a power-generation potential of 14 million kw.

Animals:
Shaanxi has more than 750 species of wild vertebrates, 79 of them rare. It is home to 12 species of animals and birds under state protection including the giant panda, snub-nosed monkey, and clouded leopard.

Plants:
The province has 5.93 million hectares of forest in the Qinling, Daba, Guanshan, Huanglong, and Qiaoshan mountainous areas. It has a 28.8 percent rate of forest coverage. It has 3,300-plus species of wild plants, 37 of them rare. The province has 800 species of medicinal plants of great economic value including sea-buckthorn and gynostemma pentaphylla. It leads the country in the output and quality of raw lacquer. The traditional exports of the province are dates, walnut meat, and tung oil.

Tourism resources:
Dispersed in Shaanxi are 72 imperial mausoleums, witness to the ancient economy and culture. The province is best known for ten scenic spots including the Mausoleum of Huang Di, the Qin terra-cotta warriors and horses, the Xi¡¯an Forest of Stone Tablets, the Shaanxi Museum of History, and the city gate and wall of Xi¡¯an. The Qin terra-cotta warriors and horses are often called the Eighth Wonder of the World and have been included by UNESCO in the list of World Cultural Heritages.

Environment and current issues:
Over 1,500 years ago, Shaanxi was endowed with lush grass and dense forest and was known as Nature¡¯s Storehouse and Green Sea on Land, but over the course of many dynasties the beautiful land was gradually destroyed and replaced by the Loess Plateau and crisscrossed by gullies because of severe desertification, war and soil erosion. The Yan¡¯an and Yulin areas are the most affected by the erosion on the upper reaches of the Yellow River. This section of the Yellow River brings down more than 100 million tons of silt per year.

The project of Beautifying Mountains and Rivers of Shaanxi has been launched in the northern part of the province. The project focuses on the ecological environment, especially soil erosion, and covers the sandstorm-hit areas along the Great Wall, the Loess Plateau, the gullies in northern Shaanxi and areas north of the Weihe River, the Central Shaanxi Plain, and the Qinling and Daba mountainous areas. It is expected that after several decades of effort, Shaanxi will become a land of green mountains, clean water, blue sky, and wealthy people and thus achieve sustainable economic and social development.

Transportation
Railway:
Shaanxi has 13 main and feeder railways. The Xi'an Railway Station is a transportation hub in the northwestern region linking the northwest, southwest, the east, and the north of China. A new railway running north and south is under construction and will solve the transportation bottleneck in northern and southern Shaanxi.

Highway:
The province is constructing a highway transportation network comprised of nine national highways with Xi'an at the core. The province has a total expressway length of 385 kilometers, and the highways now reach 95 percent of the villages.

Airport:
The Xi¡¯an Airport is a Grade-A airport in China and handles the large- and medium-sized airplanes. The Xianyang Airport is the largest air hub in northwest China, and the expansion of the airport has been started. The province has opened 119 domestic and international air routes and has flights to 51 cities in China.

Telecommunications
Telephones:
In 2001, the telephone switching board capacity has reached 4.34 million entries, 12.5 percent up. The number of urban telephone users hit 2.9 million, 14.9 percent up, and rural telephone users reached 1.28 million, 39.1 percent up. The mobile phone users amounted to 2.91 million, 91.6 percent up. The province averaged 12.3 telephones per 100 persons, the urban average being 37.76 telephones per hundred persons while the rural average being 4.76 telephones per hundred persons.

Radios and TV stations:
In 2001 Shaanxi had 11 TV stations with 34 channels broadcasting for 2,248 hours per week, nine radio stations at city level, 12 radio relay stations and 24 TV relay stations. The radio and TV coverage in the province was 90.6 percent and 92.5 percent respectively, 0.3 and 0.88 percentage points higher than the previous year.