Northern Shaanxi · Prefecture-level city

Yan'an延安市

Yan'an lies in the heart of the northern Shaanxi loess plateau, where the Yan and Luo rivers cut valleys through the tablelands. Cave dwellings and revolutionary-era sites are part of both its landscape and its memory.

English summary

Region: Northern Shaanxi
Divisions: 13
Centre point: 36.4344°N · 109.3218°E
Measured area: 36,895 km²
East–west span: 258.5 km
North–south span: 239.4 km

This is an English summary. The full entry is in Chinese. Read the full entry in Chinese

At a glance

Yan'an governs 13 county-level divisions: 2 districts, 10 counties and 1 county-level city.

Together they measure about 36,895 km², 18.0% of the province's measured area, ranking 2 of the ten cities by measured area.

The city runs about 258.5 km east to west and 239.4 km north to south, and its area-weighted centre sits near 36.4344°N · 109.3218°E.

Every figure here is aggregated from the 107 county pages on this site with the same boundary measurements. None of it is taken from an official statistical yearbook.

The divisions

Listed by administrative code — the same order as the Chinese edition. Each name opens its English county page.

Largest by measured area: Fu County. Smallest by measured area: Luochuan County.

Four seasons

One original illustration drawn four ways, in this city's palette. The vectors open at full size; the raster files are 1280×720 WebP.

Yan'an in Spring, original illustration — **Spring** · Wind and a late cold snap linger. Wild peach opens first, and the terraces are only just being turned. · Vector version

Yan'an in Summer, original illustration — **Summer** · Grass fills the gullies and apricots dry in front of the cave dwellings. Thunderstorms arrive quickly and leave as quickly. · Vector version

Yan'an in Autumn, original illustration — **Autumn** · Millet, apples and red dates ripen one after another; the tablelands are at their most varied and most saturated. · Vector version

Yan'an in Winter, original illustration — **Winter** · Earth tones take over again, warm light shows through the windows of cave dwellings, and after snow the ridges read most clearly. · Vector version

These are editorial illustrations, not photographs and not maps: they suggest the season and the landscape, and carry no survey data.

Field photographs

4 of this city's 13 county-level divisions have a field photograph on the site — one each, all from Wikimedia Commons. Each picture opens the English county page for that division.

Photograph coverage of Yan'an: 4 of 13 divisions have one, numbered to match the list beside the map — Photograph coverage · figure labels in Chinese · Vector version

Field photograph taken in Baota District, Shaanxi — Baota District · Liuxingy · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Field photograph taken in Yanchuan County, Shaanxi — Yanchuan County · Fanghong · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Field photograph taken in Ganquan County, Shaanxi — Ganquan County · Liuxingy · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Field photograph taken in Fu County, Shaanxi — Fu County · Liuxingy · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

These are third-party photographs used under the licences named on each one, not maps and not this site's own illustrations; the numbered dots mark a measured centre point inside each division, not the place the camera stood.

Where it sits

Location of Yan'an in Shaanxi: its 13 divisions highlighted on the provincial outline — Shaanxi · this city's divisions highlighted · figure labels in Chinese · Vector version

The locator draws all 107 divisions of the province and shades the ones belonging to this city, so the city reads as a piece of the whole rather than as a standalone shape.

Seal-style graphic for Yan'an — City seal · graphic device, not an official emblem

Borders inside and outside the city

Under this site's adjacency test, the 13 divisions of this city share 24 borders with one another, and 12 cross-city borders connect them to 4 other cities.

Borders between divisions: 24; Pairs of divisions of this city that share a boundary.
Neighbouring cities: 4; Tongchuan, Xianyang, Weinan and Yulin
Cross-city borders: 12; Borders where the other side belongs to a different city.

Source and confidence

Names, types and parent city: Not individually checked
Area, spans, centre and borders: Measured
Summary, seasonal notes, illustrations and palette: Editorial work

Boundary, area and centre: DataV.GeoAtlas, measured on simplified geometry. Not an official statistic.

Name, type and parent city: DataV.GeoAtlas attributes, not individually checked.

Updated 2026-11-03

Read the full entry in Chinese Back to the English portal