Located in the western end of the Hexi Corridor near the historic junction of the Northern and Southern Silk Roads, Dunhuang was a town of military importance. Dunhuang Commandery was probably established shortly after 104 BC. The name Dunhuang, meaning "Blazing Beacon", refers to the beacons lit to warn of attacks by marauding nomadic tribes. īy the third century BC, the area became dominated by the Xiongnu, but came under Chinese rule during the Han dynasty after Emperor Wu defeated the Xiongnu in 121 BC.ĭunhuang was one of the four frontier garrison towns (along with Jiuquan, Zhangye and Wuwei) established by the Emperor Wu after the defeat of the Xiongnu, and the Chinese built fortifications at Dunhuang and sent settlers there. Some have argued that this may refer to the unrelated toponym Dunhong – the archaeologist Lin Meicun has also suggested that Dunhuan may be a Chinese name for the Tukhara, a people widely believed to be a Central Asian offshoot of the Yuezhi. Its name was also mentioned in relation to the homeland of the Yuezhi in the Records of the Grand Historian. There is evidence of habitation in the area as early as 2,000 BC, possibly by people recorded as the Qiang in Chinese history. The ruins of a Han Dynasty (202 BC - 220 AD) Chinese watchtower made of rammed earth at Dunhuang. 150 Geography refers to Dunhuang as Greek Θροανα (Throana), possibly from Iranian druvana meaning something like "fortress for tax collecting." Jáo and Demieville 1971 (French, Airs de Touen-houang): 燉煌 Dùn ( tūn) huáng ‘noise of burning’ + ‘great blaze’.Mathews (1931) 1944: 敦煌 Tūnhuáng, now usually Dūnhuáng ‘regard as important, to esteem honest, sincere, generous’ + ‘a great blaze luminous, glittering’.Giles 1892: 墩煌 Dūnhuáng ‘artificial mound, tumulus, beacon mound, square block of stone or wood’ + ‘blazing, bright, luminous’.
Ī number of derivations of the name Dunhuang have been suggested by scholars: The city's seat of government is located in the town of Shazhou. Īdministratively, the county-level city of Dunhuang is part of the prefecture-level city of Jiuquan. Dunhuang commands a strategic position at the crossroads of the ancient Southern Silk Route and the main road leading from India via Lhasa to Mongolia and Southern Siberia, and also controls the entrance to the narrow Hexi Corridor, which leads straight to the heart of the north Chinese plains and the ancient capitals of Chang'an (today known as Xi'an) and Luoyang. ĭunhuang is situated in an oasis containing Crescent Lake and Mingsha Shan ( 鳴沙山, meaning "Singing-Sand Mountain"), named after the sound of the wind whipping off the dunes, the singing sand phenomenon. It has also been known at times as Shazhou and, in Uyghur, Dukhan. Dunhuang was a major stop on the ancient Silk Road and is best known for the nearby Mogao Caves. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. info)) is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China.