Xi’an (Chinese: 西安; pinyin: Xī’ān) is the capital of Shaanxi province, located in the northwest of the People’s Republic of China, in the center of the Guanzhong Plain. One of the oldest cities in China, with more than 3,100 years of history, the city was known as Chang’an before the Ming dynasty. Xi’an is one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, having held the position under several of the most important dynasties in Chinese history, including Zhou, Qin, Han, Sui, and Tang. Xi’an is the starting point of the Silk Road and home to the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang.
Since the 1990s, as part of the economic revival of interior China especially for the central and northwest regions, the city of Xi’an has re-emerged as an important cultural, industrial and educational center of the central-northwest region, with facilities for research and development, national security and China’s space exploration program. Xi’an currently holds sub-provincial status, administering 9 districts and 4 counties. According to the 2010 Census, nine urbanized districts of Xi’an has a population of 6,501,189, while the total population of the Municipality is up to 8,467,837. It is the most populous city in Northwest China, as well as one of the three most populous cities in Western China. According to a July 2012 report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, it was recently named as one of the 13 emerging megacities, or megalopolises, in China.
Being one of the largest ancient military defensive systems in the world,Xian City Wall is the most complete city wall that has survived in China.The wall stands 12 meters (40 feet) tall, 12-14 meters (40-46 feet) wide at the top and 15-18 meters (50-60 feet) thick at the bottom.It covers 13.7 kilometers (8.5 miles) in length with a deep mo-at surrounding it. Every 120 meters, there is a rampart which extends out from the main wall.Altogether, there are 98 ramparts, which were built to defend against the enemy climbing up. Each rampart has a sentry building, in which the soldiers could protect the entire wall without exposing themselves to the enemy.
The song of Everlasting Sorrow is a well-known epic poem written by Bai Juyi, a great poet of Tan-g Dynasty. It has been widely praised and praised for thousands of years. The poem was written in the first year of the Tang Dynasty (AD 806), and the author was thirty-five years old. In October of the same year, he went to Xianyou temple with friends to play. They talked about the love trag-edy stories of Emperor Tang Minghuang and Imperial concubine Yang. They feel such a strange and moving story, if not recorded, for fear that they will not be heard of in the world, it is a pity.
With the advice of his friends, Bai Juyi used the historical figures and legends and created the masterpiece of " Everlasting Sorrow" through artistic processing and embellishment.
The whole poem describes the love tragedy of Emperor Tang Minghuang and Imperial concubine Yang, and reproduces the real life of the real world through the artistic image that is molded, and the story is very sentimental, sad and moving.
