West China consists of ten provinces and autonomous regions all with varying economic importance and demographics. The diverse region spans from the Tibetan Plateau, stretching to more than five provinces to the Yangtze River till finally the Gobi desert.
Two paths of the famous Silk Road lie within this region, both beginning in Xi'an, with the northern route running along the top of West China and exiting over the Tian Shan mountains west of Urumqi, and the southern route, skirting the south of the Taklimakan Desert just north of Tibet, and driving further southwest into Kashgar and down through into modern day Pakistan. Additional routes, such as the Famed "Tea Horse" trek, began in Yunnan province and continued West across Northern Burma, Tibet and down into India.
This guides aims to supply the most accurate and up-to-date business information and statistics for West China, however, China is developing fast and this information can sometimes be unreliable or difficult to obtain. GDP figures are sometimes falsified, provincial statistics often differ from national ones, and added value from new services tends to be overestimated. We have gathered statistics primarily from Chinese government sources including websites, the official media, and other publications - the overall trends are pretty clear.
