The Hexi Corridor

1 · POSITION

The Hexi Corridor is the passage of about 1,100 kilometres that runs from the Wushao Mountains to the Yumen Pass in Gansu, between the Qilian Mountains to the south and the desert ranges that shut out the Gobi to the north. It is a string of oases, and the register holds it as a sequence of stops rather than a line on a map: each had to water and feed a caravan, or the next leg could not be made. [1]

2 · THE FOUR COMMANDERIES

In 121 BC the Han general Huo Qubing drove the Xiongnu out of the corridor, and the Han founded four commanderies along it — Wuwei, Zhangye, Jiuquan and Dunhuang. Control of the corridor gave the Han the trade routes to Central Asia and laid the foundations of the Silk Road. [1]

3 · WATER AND THE STOPS

Fertile land in the corridor is confined to the oases along its rivers, which have supported settled and nomadic peoples for thousands of years. That is why the corridor’s towns stand where they do, and why the register files the stops — Dunhuang above all — under codes of their own. [1]

4 · THE STATION AT THE END

Near Dunhuang, at its western end, the Han posthouse at Xuanquan received envoys and kings travelling to the capital, and kept the accounts of what their reception cost. The corridor’s Ming fortifications at Jiayu Pass date from 1370. [1, 2]

5 · ⚑ CANDOUR

⚑ Checked on 22 October 2026. Jiayuguan is confirmed: Jiayu Pass stands at the narrowest point of the western Hexi Corridor, about 6 km from the city, built around 1372, and was a waypoint of the Silk Road. The corridor’s length is given as about 1,100 kilometres and as 1,000 to 1,200 in the same source. [1–3]