Travel Guide Luoyang 洛阳

Located south of the Yellow River, west of Henan Province, the town of Luoyang is one of the cradles of Chinese civilization. A vital step during a visit to Henan, it will delight Chinese history lovers and lovers of civilization.HistoryCapitale, the capital of the kingdom of Zhou (th century BC), will remain so for more than a thousand years. Recent archaeological discoveries revealed that the Xia and Shang (from the th to the th Century BC) had also elected capital in the vicinity of Luoyang. Many legends give Luoyang a founding role in history: a divine horse, straight from the Yellow River would have had the marked gall of the ten natural figures which then gave the eight Chinese diagrams; another legend tells us that a divine turtle would be out of the waters of the Luo River, and that on its back the nine methods for governing that allowed Yu the Great to tame River waters and divide the country into nine prefectures were recorded.Under the Han (25-220), Zhang Heng, a prominent researcher in Luoyang, made the first astronomical instrument and the first or instruments. The famous Eastern Han College, the largest educational institution in China's history (30 000 pupils at its peak), was established in Luoyang.The most important annals of Chinese history was written here: the ritual of Zhou, the annals of Han history. Luoyang was an important trading centre, known as the eastern end of the Silk Road.Luoyang is the cradle of the Buddhist religion in China, the temple of the White Horse, established under the Han of the East, was the first Buddhist worship of the Empire. One of the three wonders of Buddhist rock art lies in the vicinity of the city in Longmen.Luoyang reached its peak under the Tang, and then gradually fell in deep sleep for several hundred years until the first five-year plan in the 1950 s. Luoyang then becomes an important Chinese industrial centre: first factory of tractors and ball bearings. The route of East-West railway, Lianyugang-Xi'an-Ürumqi, gradually désenclavera this region until then served by the unpredictable Yellow River.So after liberation comes a new city on the Soviet model. The old urban fabric will be saved, and the former Chinese city in the east of the city is still standing.Today todayThe city is currently in full development, partly thanks to the presence of the fast train (from Beijing and to Xi'an) which makes it a full tourist destination (since you are no longer forced to sleep in Zhengzhou). The tourist infrastructure is also undergoing change, with many new signs.