VISITXIAN
Districts & counties

The city, district by district

Xi'an is not a city of one centre. It is thirteen administrative units — eleven districts and two counties — spread across a basin between the Wei River and the Qinling mountains. Which one you are in decides what you can walk to, how long your commutes are, and whether the day is spent among Tang brick or among terraced orchards. This is the map most guides skip.

01

Inside the city

The five units that make up the historic core and its immediate ring.

新城区Xīnchéng Qū30.13 km²

Xincheng District (新城区)

Xincheng District (新城区, Xīnchéng Qū) is the north-eastern quarter of Xi'an's walled city, and the district that receives visitors rather than impressing them. It covers 30.13 km² — a 2019-era aggregator figure, and one of the smallest of the city's thirteen districts by area. Its government seat is at Xiyi Road Subdistrict (西一路街道), just south of the city wall's north gate. Two things carry most of its identity. The first is [Xi'an Railway Station](/en/places/xian-railway-station) (西安站) at 44 Huancheng North Road: every conventional sleeper, T-series and regional train from outside Shaanxi terminates here, a few minutes' walk north of the wall. The second is Jiefang Road (解放路), the long north–south shopping street running from the Bell Tower area up to the station plaza — renamed in memory of the Xi'an Incident of December 1936, and still functioning as ordinary retail rather than as a visitor strip. The rest is quieter. [Yongxingfang](/en/places/yongxingfang), the food street just inside Zhongshan Gate (中山门, the Little East Gate), and the Dahua 1935 arts compound on Taihua South Road both sit in the district, and neither is on the standard itinerary.

碑林区Bēilín Qū23.37 km²

Beilin District (碑林区)

Beilin District (碑林区, Bēilín Qū) is the south-western district inside Xi'an's city wall, and the smallest of the city's thirteen by area at 23.37 km² — a 2019-era aggregator figure. Its government seat is at Zhangjiacun Subdistrict (张家村街道), which is a set of dormitory blocks west of the [Forest of Steles](/en/places/forest-of-steles) rather than anywhere a visitor would seek out. The district is named for 碑林, a forest of steles — the inscribed stone tablets kept for centuries in the old Confucian temple and eventually housed in a museum of their own at 15 Sanxue Street. The same small area also holds the [Bell Tower](/en/places/bell-tower) at the junction of the four main streets and the South Gate (永宁门) of the [city wall](/en/places/city-wall), which makes Beilin the easiest district on foot if wall access is what you want. Between the museum and the gate runs [Shuyuanmen](/en/places/shuyuanmen), named for the Guanzhong Academy (关中书院) founded here in 1609. It is a working street of inkstones, brushes, seal stones, rubbing workshops and shadow-puppet stalls — the trade is old, the shops are small, and the prices are negotiable rather than listed.

莲湖区Liánhú Qū38.32 km²

Lianhu District (莲湖区)

Lianhu District (莲湖区, Liánhú Qū) is the north-western district of Xi'an's walled city, and the largest of the three that sit inside the wall — 38.32 km² on 2019-era aggregator data. Its government seat is at Beiyuanmen Subdistrict (北院门街道), which is the same street as the tourist district most visitors have heard of. That street is [Beiyuanmen](/en/places/muslim-quarter), the Hui Muslim Quarter (回民街, Huímín Jiē): a public street with no gate and no ticket, running back from the [Drum Tower](/en/places/drum-tower) to the [Great Mosque](/en/places/great-mosque) on Huajue Lane, founded in 742 AD with most of its present fabric from the Ming and Qing. The district also holds [Sajinqiao](/en/places/sajinqiao), the adjacent food lane where Xi'an residents actually eat, and the drums still run at fixed times on the Drum Tower. West of the Quarter, West Street (西大街) runs to the [City God Temple](/en/places/city-god-temple), one of China's three great capital city god temples. North of it, on the wall at Yuxiangmen, sits [Guangren Temple](/en/places/guangren-temple) — the only Tibetan Buddhist temple in the province, and the single quietest sight in the district.

雁塔区Yàntǎ Qū151.44 km²

Yanta District (雁塔区)

Yanta District (雁塔区, Yàntǎ Qū) is the large south-western district of central Xi'an, and the one most visitors meet first without meaning to. It holds the pagoda pair — the [Big Wild Goose Pagoda](/en/places/small-wild-goose-pagoda) (大雁塔, Dàyàntǎ) and its small sibling — plus the Tang-modern entertainment district around them, the university belt at Xiaozhai (小寨, Xiǎozhài), and, further south, the vast redeveloped Qujiang quarter with its [pool park](/en/places/qujiang-pool-park) and the [Grand Tang evening lights](/en/places/grand-tang-ever-bright-city). The district name means "Wild Goose Pagoda district" — it was named for the pagoda in 1954, when Yanta was one of the original post-1949 subdivisions of the city, and it is the only Xi'an district named after a monument rather than a place or a direction. Its government seat is at Xiaozhai Road (小寨路街道), which is also the district's commercial centre and the southern terminus of the city's busiest north–south axis. For a visitor this is the district that does the most work: the pagodas, the Tang park, the night spectacle, and — depending on your hotel — the science and technology campuses. It is also where the [Shaanxi History Museum](/en/places/shaanxi-history-museum) sits, in the northern part of the district near the Xiaotangshan area.

未央区Wèiyāng Qū264.41 km²

Weiyang District (未央区)

Weiyang District (未央区, Wèiyāng Qū) lies north of Xi'an's city wall and covers 264.41 km² on 2019-era aggregator data — among the largest of the city's thirteen districts, and several times the size of the three inside the wall put together. Its government seat is at Zhangjiabao Subdistrict (张家堡街道). It is named for Weiyang Palace (未央宫), the main palace of the Western Han capital Chang'an, founded under Liu Bang around 200 BC. Its [ruins park](/en/places/weiyang-palace) is the district's southern half and is largely empty ground with foundations and interpretive markers — free, open around the clock, and reached from Line 1 at Zaohe station. North of it sits [Daming Palace](/en/places/daming-palace), the Tang imperial palace built in 634 AD, destroyed in the wars that ended the dynasty in 904, and inscribed on the UNESCO Silk Roads list in 2014. The area between the two is the modern administrative and residential north of the city, arterials, housing estates and the Fengcheng 3rd Road corridor where the municipal government is based. There is very little here that a visitor would come to see by accident, and that is the honest shape of the district.

02

The near suburbs

Within an easy drive of the wall — and within reach of the metro.

灞桥区Bàqiáo Qū324.5 km²

Baqiao District (灞桥区)

Baqiao District (灞桥区, Bàqiáo Qū) is the eastern district of Xi'an, 324.5 km² on 2019-era figures, and it takes its name from Ba Bridge (灞桥) — the crossing where Tang poets broke a willow branch to say goodbye to a friend leaving for the capital. The bridge and the riverbank that named the district lie out at Baqiao town in the far east; the part visitors actually reach is much closer to town. That part is Banpo (半坡). The [Banpo Museum](/en/places/banpo-museum) preserves a 6,000-year-old Neolithic village on its original site — house foundations, pottery kilns and burial urns under one long hall — and a few hundred metres away the looms of a defunct spinning mill have been converted into the [Banpo International Art Zone](/en/places/banpo-art-zone). The district's government seat is at Fangzhicheng (纺织城, Fǎngzhīchéng), the Soviet-planned Textile City whose 1950s mill blocks still house most of the district's residents. Metro Line 1 runs the whole eastern axis out from the city centre — Banpo station for the museum, Fangzhicheng at the terminus about fifteen minutes from the Bell Tower — and the new [Xi'an East Railway Station](/en/places/xian-east-railway-station) sits inside the district boundary as well.

长安区Cháng'ān Qūabout 1,435 km² (2019 figures)

Chang'an District (长安区)

Chang'an District (长安区, Cháng'ān Qū) runs from the southern edge of Xi'an's built-up city to the north face of the Zhongnan mountains, and it is much larger than it sounds — about 1,435 km² on 2019-era figures, close to ten times the area of Yanta, Xi'an's most-visited district. Almost none of that is city. The government seat is at Weiqu (韦曲, Wéiqū), and Weiqu is where the district effectively begins and ends: a continuous strip of new apartment blocks, malls and business parks running south from Yanta along the Line 2 corridor. Past that strip it is farmland, village housing and orchards, and then the mountains. The name is the famous one — the same Chang'an of the Han and Tang capitals, which is why so much of the district reads as fringe rather than centre, sitting on land that absorbed the spillover of a city that kept growing south. The current district is recent: in June 2002 the State Council approved abolishing Chang'an County (长安县) and creating Chang'an District in its place, a rename that kept the most famous name in Chinese geography attached to what is now a suburban district. What a visitor is realistically here for is the mountain wall at the southern edge. The Zhongnan range (终南山) rises directly out of the farmland, and the trails are reached from the Weiqu end of metro Line 2 — see the note below, because the mountains and the district are less connected than the map makes them look.

高陵区Gāolíng Qū294 km²

Gaoling District (高陵区)

Gaoling District (高陵区, Gāolíng Qū) is the northernmost of Xi'an's thirteen administrative divisions, sitting on the north bank of the Wei River (渭河) about 20 km north-east of the city wall — flat irrigated plain, no hills in sight, and the wrong side of the river from everything most visitors come to see. It is also the newest name in the list. Until 13 December 2014 it was Gaoling County (高陵县), and that December the State Council approved its conversion into a 区; the Chinese description is 撤县设区, a county raised to district status. Before 1983 it was not Xi'an's at all — it came across from Xianyang prefecture (咸阳地区) in October of that year, one of several counties the city absorbed that autumn. It covers roughly 294 km² on 2019-era aggregator data, a figure we have not yet checked against an official source, and its government seat is at Gaoling Subdistrict (高陵街道) near the river. What a visitor actually meets is farmland, village roads and the edge of the city: the Wei plain is one of the irrigated agricultural belts north of the city. The single site with a name worth having is 唐昭陵 (Tang Zhaoling), the mausoleum of the Tang emperor Ruizong, out in the district's rural area beyond the seat — out of the way, car-only, and not yet one of our place pages.

鄠邑区Hùyì Qūabout 861 km² (2019 figures)

Huyi District (鄠邑区)

Huyi District (鄠邑区, Hùyì Qū) sits south-west of Xi'an on the irrigated Guanzhong plain, about 861 km² on 2019-era figures, with the Qinling foothills walling off its southern edge. It was Huxian County (户县, Hùxiàn) until the State Council approved 撤县设区 — converting the county into a city district — in 2016, and the conversion is recent enough that older maps, addresses and hotel bookings still carry the county name. Its government seat is at Yuxia (余下, Yúxià), a subdistrict in the northern part of the district on the plain. What it produces is what it is known for: grain, melons and grapes from open farmland, orchards on trellises running out toward the mountain foot, and village housing of the tiled, walled kind you see across the plain west of the city. The district borders Zhouzhi County to the west and Lantian County to the south, which matters more for travellers than anything inside it — the kiwifruit country and the western Qinling road trips that most people associate with this corner of Xi'an lie beyond the district, not in it. For a visitor the practical answer is that Huyi is a place to pass through, stop for a meal, and keep going. The district has no headline site, no old town and no reason to build an itinerary around. Its value is as the honest answer to the question visitors rarely ask: this is what most of a district of thirteen actually looks like from the inside.

临潼区Líntóng Qū915.97 km²

Lintong District (临潼区)

Lintong District (临潼区, Líntóng Qū) is the district 35 km east of downtown Xi'an that holds the [Terracotta Army](/en/places/terracotta-army), and for almost every visitor that is the whole reason to leave the city. Administratively it is considerably more than one attraction: 915.97 km² on 2019-era figures, larger than eight of Xi'an's other twelve districts — only Chang'an, Lantian and Zhouzhi are bigger — with its government seat at Lishan (骊山街道), named for the mountain that rises over the whole area. Lintong County became Lintong District in **1992**. It has been imperial country since the First Emperor chose the foot of Mount Li for his tomb; the hot springs did the rest of the marketing, drawing Tang emperors to the same water and leaving [Huaqing Palace](/en/places/huaqing-palace) as their bathing place. Understand its character before you plan. The sights fully justify the journey, but Lintong is a day-trip district, not a base. The town itself is functional sprawl with little reason to linger after dark, and the district beyond it is agricultural. Treat Lintong as one well-organized day. Here is how the day works. Leave Xi'an around 8:00. Metro Line 9 is the spine: ride it to Huaqing Pool (华清池) station, then hop a taxi or local bus (602/613) for the last 15 minutes to the [Terracotta Army](/en/places/terracotta-army). The budget alternative is tourist bus 306 from the [railway station](/en/places/xian-railway-station)'s east square, about ¥7 and an hour; a DiDi runs ¥120–150 door to door. Do the army first, before the tour-bus waves, then double back to [Huaqing Palace](/en/places/huaqing-palace) for the afternoon, when the light drops onto Mount Li. You are home for dinner. One evening footnote: in season, roughly April to October, Huaqing Palace stages [*The Song of Everlasting Sorrow*](/en/places/song-of-everlasting-sorrow) (长恨歌, Chánghèn Gē), an open-air drama performed against the mountain itself. It is worth staying for — but book a car home in advance, because the last metro will not wait.

03

The outer ring

Two counties and one aviation district: far, large, each with a single reason to go.

阎良区Yánliáng Qū244.55 km²

Yanliang District (阎良区)

Yanliang District (阎良区, Yánliáng Qū) is the far north-western outlier of Xi'an's eleven city districts — 244.55 km² on 2019-era figures, with the government seat at Fenghuang Road (凤凰路街道). It is not on any visitor's itinerary, and the reason is plain: Yanliang is where Xi'an's aircraft industry lives. Plants, an airfield, and the housing that goes with them are the district's actual content. It is also a young district. Yanliang was a town (阎良镇) in Lintong County until **June 1966**, when it was made a district of Xi'an in its own right; during the Cultural Revolution it was renamed Dongfeng District (东风区), and the Yanliang name was restored in **1972**. Aircraft manufacturing has been the base of its economy since those years, so the district grew around its industry rather than around an old town. One thing trips people up here. The **Yanliang Aviation High-Tech Industrial Base** (阎良航空高技术产业基地) is named for this district and its territory sits inside Yanliang's boundary, but it is not part of Yanliang's administration. It is one of the city's seven **development zones**, run by management committees (管委会) at municipal level — the same category as Gaoxin. The district line and the zone line do not coincide, and the distinction is explained in the sub-section below. Whether you need this district: almost never. There is no wall, no temple, no museum and no scenery worth the journey, and the attractions people associate with this corner of northern Xi'an belong to Lintong and Huyi instead. If your interest is Chinese aviation, Yanliang is the one place in the municipality where that interest goes deeper than a photograph, and specialist industry visits are arranged rather than stumbled upon. For everyone else: know where it is, keep the day for the walled city.

蓝田县Lántián Xiàn1,529 km²

Lantian County (蓝田县)

Lantian County (蓝田县, Lántián Xiàn) is one of Xi'an's two counties — 蓝田 and 周至 are the two 县 in a city otherwise made of eleven districts — and it is the far south-east one, down past the edge of the built-up city at the Qinling's north-east end. It came to Xi'an in October 1983, transferred in from Weinan prefecture (渭南地区); until then it belonged to the prefecture south of the Wei River. It covers about 1,529 km² on 2019-era aggregator data we have not yet checked against an official source, and its government seat is at Languan Subdistrict (蓝关街道) — named for 蓝关, the old Qinling pass on the road south into Shaanxi, which is still the county's line into the mountains. What a visitor finds is a county town and a great deal of mountain slope. The mountains are why the county is named where it is: 玉山 (Yushan), a range that served as a Red Army base in the late 1930s, and 王顺山 (Wangshun Mountain) above the seat. The county's traditional product is 蓝田玉 — Lantian jade, a stone prized in Chinese culture and long since worked out — and 猕猴桃 (kiwifruit) orchards run along the valleys. None of that is arranged for a visitor yet: we have no place pages inside the county, and this page is here so the map adds up rather than so you book something.

周至县Zhōuzhì Xiàn2,975 km²

Zhouzhi County (周至县)

Zhouzhi County (周至县, Zhōuzhì Xiàn) is the largest of Xi'an's thirteen administrative divisions and the furthest south-west of them — and it is a county, 县, not a district, one of only two such units in a city otherwise made of eleven 区. It joined Xi'an in October 1983, transferred in from Xianyang prefecture (咸阳地区). It covers about 2,975 km² on 2019-era aggregator data that we have not yet confirmed against an official source, and its government seat is at Erqu Subdistrict (二曲街道) in the north of the county. The county is agricultural, and what it is known for nationally is 猕猴桃 (kiwifruit) — the orchards south and east of the seat are what you actually drive through on the way in. The parts a visitor wants are in the north, in the Qinling foothills: [Louguantai](/en/places/louguantai) (楼观台), the Daoist complex where Laozi is said to have taught, and the [Qinling Four Treasures panda park](/en/places/qinling-four-treasures-panda-park) a few minutes away from it, home to Qizai, the only brown panda in captivity. Zhouzhi is also where the G5 Xi'an–Kunming motorway stops running inside Shaanxi: its exit at the county's northern edge is the last one before the road continues on into Sichuan.

04

The development zones are not districts

Xi'an also administers seven development zones, and several addresses you will meet on hotel cards and business pages belong to them rather than to any district.

The High-Tech Zone (西安高新技术产业开发区) is the one visitors meet most often: it is where several of the city's major hotels sit, roughly thirty minutes' drive from the old city. It is a municipal management committee (管委会), one level above district government, and since November 2018 it has administered ten towns and subdistricts transferred from Yanta, Chang'an and Huyi. The other six are the Economic and Technological Development Zone, the Qujiang New District, the Chanba Ecological District, the Yanliang aviation base, the aerospace base and the International Port district. None of them is a fourteenth district, and none has its own district government.