Kansu

Kansu: see Gansu, China.

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Gansu

 or Kan-su conventional Kansu

Province (pop., 2002 est.: 25,930,000), north-central China. It is bordered by Mongolia, the autonomous regions of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia, and the provinces of Shaanxi, Sichuan, and Qinghai. It has an area of 141,500 sq mi (366,500 sq km). Its capital is Lanzhou. For centuries a passage between the upper Huang He (Yellow River) region and western China, it became part of Chinese territory in the 3rd century BC. It was renowned as the entranceway into China used by Marco Polo. Eastern Gansu is the main site of earthquakes in China; in 1920 an earthquake there destroyed many towns and caused 246,000 deaths. Wheat is the province's chief crop, and wheat flour rather than rice is the basis of the local diet.

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Gansu, Kansu

a province of NW China, between Tibet and Inner Mongolia: mountainous, with desert regions; forms a corridor, the Old Silk Road, much used in early and medieval times for trade with Turkestan, India, and Persia. Capital: Lanzhou. Pop.: 26 030 000 (2003 est.). Area: 366 500 sq. km (141 500 sq. miles)

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Kansu 

a province in northern China. Area, 530,000 sq km; population, 12.7 million (1972). Its administrative center is Lanchou.

The terrain is primarily mountainous. In the north, the eastern part of the Bei Mountains reaches an altitude of 2,791 m, and slightly to their south is the northeastern part of the Nan Mountains, over 5,000 m high. In the southern part of the province are spurs of the Min and Qinling (Tsinling) mountains and, in the extreme eastern part, the western edges of the Loess Plateau. The climate is continental. The average yearly precipitation is 150-400 mm but reaches 600 mm in the southeast. The northern areas of the province are part of the landlocked regions of Central Asia, the central areas are drained by the Huang Ho and its tributaries, and the south belongs to the Yangtze Basin. The prevailing kinds of landscape are mountain-steppe and mountain-desert.

Kansu is an agrarian, chiefly farming, region. Artificial irrigation has been used from earliest times on its territory, in the upper Huang Ho Valley. This valley and the intermontane depression known as the Ho-hsi Corridor, providing an ancient route long linking northeast and northwest China, are the most agriculturally developed areas of the province. About 11 percent of the total land area of Kansu is plowland. The main food crops include wheat (representing 40 percent of the sown area), millet, kaoliang, corn, and barley. Industrial crops like sugar beets, tobacco, and cotton are also important. Nomadic livestock breeding predominates (sheep, as well as cattle, yaks, camels, and horses).

The extraction and refining of oil, centered on Yümen, has been developed. There is some mining of coal and of copper and iron ore as well. The province’s other leading industries include chemicals, metalworking, and the production of fissionable materials. The main industrial center and a transportation center of national significance is Lanchou.

I. KH. OVDIENKO

The territory of Kansu was conquered by the Chinese in the third and second centuries B.C. It was organized as a province from the former regions of Ch’ing Yuan, Lingchao, and Fun in the 13th century. From the end of the 14th century, the province was subordinated to the administration of Shensi province, but after the second half of the 17th century it was again put under the direct administration of the central government of China. From 1862 to 1874, Kansu was the arena for the massive popular uprising of the T’ung-kans (Dungans) and was devastated by the government’s suppression of that revolt. With the establishment of the Kuomintang government in China, 15 districts were separated from Kansu and organized into the separate provinces of Ch’inghai and Ningsia in 1928. From 1928 to 1931 there was another massive uprising of T’ung-kan peasants. From 1936 to 1948, the northeast part of the province was incorporated into the Border Region of Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia, where the headquarters of the democratic forces of the country, led by the Chinese Communists, was located. In October 1949, the territory of Kansu was freed by the National Liberation Army of China from the armies of the Kuomintang reactionaries.

V. P. ILIUSHECHKIN