Ancient City Ruins in the Deserts of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China

Abstract

During the first century B.C. the Chinese built cities along the Hexi Corridor to protect the ancient Silk Road from raids by Huns. A Hun ruler reciprocated by founding his own city and later Chinese dynasties repeated the process. Urban populations were fed by cultivating oases and by harnessing melt-water streams to irrigate and reclaim areas of grassland. Where trees fell and cultivation broke surface layers of alluvium and clay, water and wind began to erode and expose underlying beds of sand. Blowing sand encroached upon the cultivated area and eventually drifted across the ruins of former cities. Sites of cities that once housed tens of thousands of people are now being explored scientifically. Research into the recurrent history of desertification throws light on present-day problems faced by one-sixth of the world’s population living in arid regions and by one-third of the earth’s land surface covered by deserts. By learning from past events we may be able to halt future advances of deserts.

At the invitation of American Council for International Exchange of Scholar, the author visited University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a Fulbright Scholar in Residence. In 9 Dec, the author gave the speech named “Outstanding Ancient City Ruins in the Deserts of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China”; in 1985, the English version was published in Journal of Historical Geography, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 241–252.—Editor’s note.