Jīngchuān

Jīngchuān lies in the valley of the Jing River, where the town of Jīngzhōu has stood since the Northern Dynasties. In the Tang it was a garrison on the road to the west, held for a time by the loyal governor Duàn Xiùshí, and on the hill outside, Northern Wei monks cut the Wángmǔgōng grottoes and a shrine to the Queen Mother of the West. The Yuan kept Jingchuan County attached to the prefectural seat.

In 1370 the Ming reduced Jingzhou's rank and placed it under Píngliáng Prefecture, abolishing the attached county so that its affairs were run directly by the subprefecture. Flood damage then changed the location of government. The seat moved from the old town near Shuǐquánsì on the northern bank of the Jing to Huángfǔdiàn on the southern bank, the site of the later county town. This relocation joined an administrative reorganisation to the practical problem of maintaining a seat beside an unstable watercourse, and the river stayed central to the identity of a district whose name and administrative centre were bound to its valley.