Jiayuguan City Museum

The Jiayuguan City Museum tells the story less of the fortress than of the town itself, which grew up in the desert around a steel works. The first hall is taken up by a detailed model of the built-up area with its lakes and avenues, ringed by panoramic screens showing views of the district. Further rooms are devoted to the Silk Road, where a diorama with a full-size camel caravan stretches along a painted desert wall. A separate part of the display recreates the life of the first builders of the works, from a mud-brick room of the 1950s to a flat of the 1990s with a television and a games console. The museum stands in the new part of town, beside the avenue that leads to the South Lake.

On the map