Yumen Pass


Yumen Pass, or Jade Gate or Pass of the Jade Gate, is the name of a pass of the Great Wall located west of Dunhuang in today's Gansu Province of China. During the Han dynasty, this was a pass through which the Silk Road passed, and was the one road connecting Central Asia and China, the former called the Western Regions. Just to the south was the Yangguan pass, which was also an important point on the Silk Road.
Although the Chinese guan is usually translated simply as "pass", its more specific meaning is a "frontier pass" to distinguish it from an ordinary pass through the mountains. Yumen guan 玉門關 and Yang guan 陽關 are derived from: yu 玉 = 'jade' + men 門 = 'gate', 'door'; and yang 陽 = 'sunny side', 'south side of a hill', 'north side of a river,' and guan 關 = ‘frontier-passes’. These were the two most famous passes leading to the north and west from Chinese territory. During the Early Han, "... a defensive line was established from Jiuquan in the Gansu Corridor west to the Jade Gate Pass at its end."
It is not to be confused with the city Yumen in Gansu, China. Although both are within the same Jiuquan "prefecture-level city" of Gansu province, Yumen Pass is located some 400 km to the west of its namesake city.

History

Footnotes