Yungang Caves

Shanxi, China

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July 27th 2004
This entry records the later parts of our travel in Inner Mongolia and Shanxi. Our first stop in Shanxi Province was Datong (大同), once the capital of the Northern Wei Dynasty which was founded by the Turkic-speaking Tuoba people. Indeed, Datong has long been the border town between the normadic cultures of the Steppe and the agricultural one in central China, and thus it was once a strategic ... read more

Asia » China » Shanxi

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For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. A... ... read more