Wèiyuán

Weiyuan takes its name from the headwaters of the Wei River, traditionally located at Wushu Mountain. Its valleys lie among the highlands of Longyou, where the upper Wei gathers the streams that will flow east across the Guanzhong plain. The district was known as Shouyang in Han times and received the name Weiyuan under the Western Wei. Reduced to a fort under the Song, Weiyuan became a county again under the Yuan and remained subordinate to Lintao under the Ming. In 1558 two districts were transferred from neighbouring Didao to enlarge it. A local gazetteer records that the county passed to Lanzhou prefecture in 1738, under the Qing.