Yumen Pass (simplified Chinese: 玉门关; traditional Chinese: 玉門關; pinyin: Yùmén Guān), or Jade Gate or Pass of the Jade Gate, is the name of a pass located west of Dunhuang in today's Gansu Province of China. In ancient times, this was a pass through which the Silk Road passed, and was the one road connecting Central Asia and China, the former called the Western Regions. Just to the south was the Yangguan pass, which was also an important point on the Silk Road.
Although Chinese guan is usually translated simply as "pass", its more specific meaning is a "frontier pass" to distinguish it from an ordinary pass through the mountains. Yumen guan and Yang guan 玉門陽關 are derived from: yu 玉 = 'jade' + men = 'gate', 'door'; and Yang 陽 = 'sunny side', 'south side of a hill', 'north side of a river,' and guan 關 = ‘frontier-passes’. These were the two most famous passes leading to the north and west from Chinese territory. During the Early Han, "... a defensive line was established from Jiuquan ('Wine Springs') in the Gansu Corridor west to the Jade Gate Pass at its end."
Not to be confused with the city Yumen (玉门, literally Jade Gate) in Gansu, China. Although both are within the same Jiuquan "prefecture-level city" (a multi-county administrative unit) of Gansu province, Yumen Pass is located some 400 km to the west of its namesake city.
Famous quotes containing the word pass:
“To doubt the end were want of trust in God,
Who, if he has decreed
That we must pass a redder sea
Than that which rang to Miriam’s holy glee,
Will surely raise at need
A Moses with his rod!”
—Henry Timrod (1828–1867)