The World Cultural Heritage Jiaohe Old City is called Jiaohe because the river diverges under the city. Historically, the Ancient City of Jiaohe was not only the seat of Anxi Dufu, the highest military and political institution under the jurisdiction of the Western Regions by the central government of the Tang Dynasty, but also an important town on the Silk Road. Destroyed by war, nature and other factors, the former magnificent Silk Road city is only left with ruins. Lu Jicai, an associate research librarian of the Xinjiang Cultural Heritage Protection Center, has been working in the Jiaohe Ancient City since 2005, and has personally participated in the state's protection of the Jiaohe Ancient City in recent years.

Jiaohe Ancient City

The Ancient City of Jiaohe is an important urban site on the Silk Road from the 2nd century BC to the 14th century AD. It has the most complete, longest-lasting and largest-scale ancient urban architectural relics in the world. For more than 1,000 years, it has been the political, economic, military, cultural, and farming activity center of Turpan in the ancient Western Regions of China. So far, the ancient city has retained the Gaotai city site and the Yaernaizgou (east) and Yishigolgou (west), Gaotai cemetery, grottoes and temples, salt mountains, Paleolithic sites and other precious remains.

The Ancient City of Jiaohe has witnessed the prehistoric human history in the ancient Western Regions of China, the history of civilizations such as Cheshi and Gaochang in ancient times, witnessed the extraordinary process of the Western Han Dynasty unifying the Western Regions and setting up the Western Regions Protectorate, and witnessed the establishment of the Anxi Protectorate in the Tang Dynasty to manage the Western Regions. The national governance wisdom of carrying out cultural and commercial exchanges shows the dissemination, exchange and integration of commercial and trade culture, architectural technology, national culture, religious culture, etc. in cities along the Silk Road.

It can be said that the ancient Jiaohe City has played a very important role in promoting the history of civilization in Xinjiang, the continuous operation of the oasis Silk Road that benefits the people of the East and the West, and the consolidation and development of China's unified multi-ethnic country. Editor/He Yuting