Guanshan Grassland 关山草原

About Guanshan Grassland

The scenic area's own page places the grassland in the south-west of Long County, 140 km from Baoji and 300 km from Xi'an, 260 km east of Tianshui in Gansu, adjoining Malu town in Zhangjiachuan Hui Autonomous County to its west and Xiangquan township in Chencang district to its south, straddling the Guanshan range where Long County and Zhangjiachuan meet; it says the area is served by the Baoji-Zhongwei railway, which links to the Longhai line, and by the Bao-Han expressway, which links to the Eurasian corridor and the Lianhuo expressway. It describes the land as high in the south and low in the north at an elevation of 2,200 m, transitional between mountain and plain, on the eastern slope of the Longshan at the junction of Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia, and calls it the north-west gate of the Guanzhong plain and a natural barrier, and an important post station on the ancient Silk Road. The climate, the page says, is cold and high, with no marked summer, spring running into autumn, a long winter and annual rainfall of up to 700 mm.

The page gives the grassland a long horse-pasturing history. In the early Western Zhou, it says, the Qin ancestor Feizi herded horses for the Zhou royal house between the Qian and Wei rivers, and was enfeoffed in the eighth year of King Xiao of Zhou (890 BCE); in 776 BCE Duke Xiang of Qin moved to and built Qianyi, and after escorting the Zhou court east to Luoyi in 770 BCE he was made a feudal lord, Qianyi remaining the first Qin capital until 762 BCE, fourteen years in all, so that the Longshan highlands and the Qian river basin are called the cradle of Qin culture. In the early Han the Longshan region was an important pastoral area where horses from the Western Regions were bred for military use, and the page says that it is said more than 300,000 horses were pastured around Guanshan in the Han period. After the Tang the trade declined, and in 1958 Long County set up the state-run Guanshan horse farm, importing Kirghiz mares and using Latvian stallions to cross-breed them, producing the Guanzhong horse, which the page says restored the build of the Han and Tang horses to the local herds. The People's Daily Online feature of May 2023 tells the Qin and Han story more compactly, saying that Duke Xiang of Qin made his capital here, that the First Emperor on his western progress saw it as Qin's west gate, and that Emperor Wu of Han came up to Longshou and set up Dazhen pass here, which is why the place is known as 秦都汉关; the two accounts differ in emphasis on where the Qin capital stood and are reported separately rather than merged.

The city's culture and tourism bureau grades 关山草原景区 as 4A in its 2026 table and gives its address as 陇县天成镇, a township entry rather than a street address. The People's Daily Online feature describes the grassland as the only inland Chinese scenic area whose main feature is alpine meadow, at the geometric centre of the three cities Baoji, Pingliang and Tianshui, with landforms it compares to the central European Alps, and records that the place has been called 皇家牧场 and 天然凉都; those characterisations are the page's own. It adds that visitors can follow the tracks of the ancients, hear the horse-herding stories, ride grass sledges and zip-lines and stay overnight in guesthouses.

What to look for

• The alpine meadow itself, at about 2,200 m, on the eastern slope of the Longshan where Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia meet
• The Guanzhong horse, the breed the state-run Guanshan horse farm produced from 1958 by crossing Kirghiz mares with Latvian stallions
• The grassland's position as a post station on the ancient Silk Road and the first great pass out of Chang'an to the west, known as 秦都汉关
• The Guanshan range, where Long County and Zhangjiachuan Hui Autonomous County in Gansu meet
• The grass sledges and zip-lines and the overnight guesthouses the People's Daily Online feature describes

Location & getting there

Getting to Guanshan Grassland

Confirm the road and activity operator, weather and return transport. Stay on permitted routes and do not treat open land as unrestricted access.

• Search for 关山草原 with 宝鸡市 and 陇县.