Luoyang is a prefecture-level city in China with a population of 6.5 million. It is bordered by Jiyuan to the north, Nanyang to the south, Sanmenxia to the west, and Zhengzhou to the east .During the Eastern Han and Northern Wei dynasties, this city located in Henan province , was the capital of China.
It is considered one of the cradles of Chinese civilization.
History
Much of Luoyang’s history was revealed in the 1950s through excavations to rebuild the city, and through irrigation and agricultural terracing of the fields in the area. Within a few years, 60 sites and 1,000 tombs had come to light. By 5000 BC the area was densely populated; the Neolithic site discovered in 1921 west of Luoyang at Yangshao was just one of many along the Yellow River Plain .
The archaeological remains of Luoyang are located in a strategic place, surrounded by hills on three sides and bordered by four rivers. Remains from the Shang dynasty , from the Bronze Age , have been found , but the main find has been a walled city of the Zhou dynasty dating back to 1000 BC. This city was the capital of China from 771 BC , and according to tradition, Confucius studied here and Lao Zi was in charge of the archives.
Under the Qin and early Han emperors, the capital returned to Xi’an , but soon after (between 25 and 220 AD ), the same Han dynasty was again forced to retreat to Luoyang, building its city east of the White Horse Temple . [2]
Luoyang’s trade and communications with the West via the Silk Road grew rapidly. The Imperial University was founded with 30,000 students and a large library. Cai Lun invented paper and Zhang Heng , the imperial astronomer, invented the armillary sphere, showing that the Chinese knew about the movement of the heavens long before the West. Buddhism appeared here in 69 AD . [2]
For a time, in the turbulent years following the fall of the Han, Luoyang remained the capital of a number of dynasties, and a centre of Chinese cultural life. Here the poet Zuo Si wrote a series of poems, “The Three Capitals”, which were so popular that they caused a paper shortage because of the fondness for copying his verses. [2]
When the northern invaders, the Toba Wei, decided to move their capital to the centre of the country (they came from Datong ), Luoyang was chosen, probably because it was considered the centre of the world. In 493 , under the command of Emperor Xiao Wendi, the move was carried out and, overnight, another capital was built. Within 30 years, the city had grown to half a million inhabitants, had markets selling any Asian product, and more than 1,400 Buddhist temples.
The great sculptures of Longmen were begun in this period. In 543 , under another Wei emperor, Luoyang was again abandoned and its people forced to move to Yeh. One chronicle of the time describes the city walls in a state of collapse, covered with mugwort, the streets filled with thorns, and millet growing between the ceremonial towers of the imperial palace. [2]
Luoyang lay in ruins for 70 years until, under the Sui dynasty , it was rebuilt in a grid pattern on both sides of the Luo River. Two million men were recruited for the work, and the new city quickly became China’s most important commercial centre, always bustling with foreign merchants. The population soon reached one million, with three large markets within the walls, more than 3,000 street stalls and some 400 inns for merchants. To feed the population, grain was brought from the Yangzi basin via the Grand Canal, and stored in huge granaries: the Hanjia granary, discovered in 1971 west of the ancient city, held some 250,000 tonnes, and was insulated from damp and protected from rats and insects. The Emperor Yang Di brought 3,000 musicians to the court and surrounded himself with scientists, engineers and scholars. [2]
During the Tang Dynasty , Luoyang became the second capital of the empire. It is said that in 800 AD , Empress Wu Zetian , angry at peonies for disobeying her orders to bloom in the snow, banned them altogether from her capital of Chang’an. Many were transplanted to Luoyang, where they took root in folk culture, and are now one of the city’s attractions. On occasion, drought forced the court to move to Luoyang, and it was then that the empress commissioned some of the most important sculptures at Longmen. [2]
With the decline of the Tang, Luoyang lost its importance forever; the capital was moved to Kaifeng and power gradually became concentrated in the south. Luoyang never recovered and by 1920 only a dilapidated settlement of about 20,000 people remained of the city. The first five-year plan singled out the city as one of the country’s future industrial centres and since the 1950s it has continued to grow, although it is less attractive and more polluted than the old city. [
Climate
In Luoyang, the summers are long, very hot, and partly cloudy and the winters are very cold, dry, and mostly clear.
Over the course of the year, the temperature typically varies from -3 °C to 32°C and is rarely below -7°C or above 37°C.
Places of interest
- Longmen Grottoes( considered a World Heritage Site) [3]
- The White Horse Temple(Baima Si), located 12 kilometers east of the modern city
- Guanlin, a group of temples built in honor of the Three Kingdoms period hero Guan Yu.
- The Luoyang Museum of Ancient Tombs, the only museum of its kind in all of China
- Gu Lou (Drum Tower)
- Temple of the City God
- Wenfeng Pagoda
- Peony Park
- Nandajie Yeshi Market [4]
