(EN) Xi'an 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 6,000 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.[1] 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 centre 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, administerring 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.[ The report pinpoints and highlights the demographic and income trends that are shaping these cities' development. The Stele Forest, or Xi'an Beilin Museum (碑林; pinyin: Bēilín), is a museum for steles and stone sculptures which is located in Xi'an, China. The museum is housed in a former Confucian Temple and it has housed a growing collection of Steles since 1087. By 1944 it was the principal museum for Shaanxi province. Due to the large number of steles, it was officially renamed as the Forest of Stone Steles in 1992. All together, there are 3,000 steles in the museum, which is divided into seven exhibitions halls, which mainly display works of calligraphy, painting and historical records https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stele_Forest VALPARDhttp://valpardfilms.awardspace.com/ Map for China: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zB1TUeC1rIPg.k41cHxqmip3I

• published: 21 Sep 2014
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