Xi'an: the Natural Setting

A broad and fertile river valley, a massive granitic mountain range crowned by jagged peaks, rolling hills made of loess and silt, and one massive sprawling capital city. Sounds like I could be describing the San Joaquin Valley of central California but no this is North China's Wei River valley. This valley is home to Xi'an not Sacramento, to the QinLing Mountains not the Sierra Nevada, and is the cradle to many millennia of Chinese civilization not to the agricultural payload fueling California's economy. The single largest difference between these two places is its orientation- the Wei Valley stretches East-West while the Sierras are a North-South range.

When the ancient ancestors of the modern Han people reached this fertile valley, named Guanzhong 關中 , they created a sedentary farming population from which an agricultural civilization with specialization of labor and a written language. The valley's fertility comes from the silt rich Wei river, the largest tributary of the Yellow, and the snow capped peaks of the QinLing range. The stability of the region's climate provided consistent harvests of wheat, millet, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. This breadbasket provided supplies for the armies that would conquer most of what is today modern China and bring back tribute to the emperors in Xi'an.

The Qinling Mountains not only provided a steady stream of water to the valleys farmers it also protected these ancient Han peoples from Southern intrusion. Without such steep mountains, the north was less easily defended thus spurring the creation of a northern Great Wall to protect country from the Northern nomads. The Chinese term for China, 中国, means middle kingdom and its entomology is derived from the Wei valley's location.

Seeing the parallels between China's Wei river valley can at first be quite difficult because it is hard to see past the gray haze of pollution that is epidemic in Xi'an. Much like California's central valley, pollution gets trapped in the valley due to its natural shape and is further exacerbated because of temperature inversions holding pollutants down near the earth surface. Most days the QinLing mountains are often not visible despite being under 25 kms away. Most of the energy generated in China comes from coal and coal burns dirty. Even my apartment building's heating system is coal powered. This smoke stack pollution mixes with construction dust, car exhaust, and the burning of agricultural waste to create a thick blanket of smog that is palpable. Yet in China, there aren't many alternatives. Coal is primary because it is available and cheap, two assets desperately needed in a developing country with 1.5 billion people, and the city is building a subway system to slow the purchase of cars and decrease the stress on its buses.

California on the other hand has a lot more flexibility in the way it can deal with its naturally exacerbated pollution problems. Perhaps Xi'an will be a reminder of what Sacramento could become without planning and China could learn from environmental strides made in a very similar natural setting.