Pingliang City and Orphanage

Pingliang
Pingliang lies on the Loess Plateau,in the eastern region of the Liupan Mountains and the upper reaches of the Jing River. It used to be one of the important places of ancient Chinese culture and the second key post on the Silk Road as well as a strategic point, through the ages, along the natural barrier formed by the Liupan Mountains. As early as the late Neolithic Age, 4,000 years ago, human beings settled here. It is now the administrative center for Pinliang Districtand has a population of 270,000 of 14 nationalities, 73.4~0f whom are Han and 26.5~ Hui; others include: Man,Buyi, Baoan, Xibo, Tibetan, Korean, Russian, etc. Pingliang is a vast territory rich in natural resources. It cultivated land, natural forests,grasslands, and land suitable for either forest or grass. Rich in mineral resources, Pingliang has twelve active mines and verified deposits of sixteen minerals to include coal ,iron, copper, aluminum, pottery clay, limestone, etc. The coal deposits are estimated at 18 million tons. The limestone is of very high quality and in a concentrated location for easy mining. Animal resources are rich, too; in addition to poultryand livestock,there are wild animals too: musk, deer, fox,wolf, leopard, badger, hedgehog, wild boar, pheasant,etc. The wild plants of interest are mountain peach, wildapricot, mushroom, and over one hundred wild herbs likelicorice root.
(taken from www.silkroadcn.com/pingliang.htm)