Qingyang is the easternmost city in Gansu, set on the Loess Plateau in a landscape of eroded yellow earth, cave dwellings cut into cliff faces, and deep ravines carved by seasonal streams. It is a region of considerable antiquity — Chinese legend places the birthplace of the mythological ancestor Xianzu in the Huanxian area of the prefecture — and the loess environment has preserved archaeological sites and traditional building forms with unusual clarity.
The Northern Stone Cave Temple (Beidao Shiku) in the surrounding countryside contains Tang and Song dynasty carvings in a relatively unvisited setting. Qingyang is also the nearest city to the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor in neighbouring Shaanxi — the major ancestral shrine to the semi-mythological founder of Chinese civilisation — which draws enormous crowds during the Qingming Festival.
Within the city, the Qingyang Municipal Museum covers the region's history from neolithic settlement through the Silk Road period. The streets of the old city retain some traditional courtyard architecture characteristic of the Loess Plateau, and paper-cutting — a local folk art tradition of particular refinement in this area — is practised and sold throughout the markets.
Qingyang connects by bus and train to Lanzhou in about five hours and to Xi'an in a similar time via Pingliang. It sits in a part of Gansu that most Silk Road itineraries bypass entirely, which gives it an unhurried quality that contrasts with the tourist infrastructure of the Hexi Corridor.