Yángguān

Yangguan lies southwest of Dunhuang, on the desert approaches toward the western regions. Fortified under the Western Han, it became one of the great frontier passes alongside Yumenguan to the north. Its earlier role gives context to a place whose routes and political control changed substantially in later centuries.

The Tang poet Wang Wei made Yangguan an enduring image of farewell in his poem for a friend traveling west. Its musical setting, Yangguan Sandie, continued to circulate in later centuries; the earliest surviving score dates to the Ming. The pass's literary memory should be distinguished from the changing use of roads and settlements around Dunhuang during the Ming and Qing periods.