Translated by Chen Shuling

The running water of Tao River has given birh to the diligent people of Min area and to the rich and colorful cultures of folk custom. Located at the side of Tao River, Min County, the 'land port in Gansu Province', full with the spirituality of Human outstanding earth deities, has accumulated profound and amazing cultural deposits.

Lying in the south of Gansu Province and the middle reach of Tao River, Min County borders Loess Plateau of the Middle Gansu, plateau and mountain area of South Gansu. The whole county covers 3578 square meters of drainage area, equivalent to 5.367 million mu, among which there are 220,000 mu waterside area and 970,000 mu forest area. The county administers 9 countryside communities, 9 towns, 310 villages with a total population of 450,000, of which 15000 people are of minority nationalities such as the Hui, Tibetans, Dongxiang, Salar, Yugur and Manchu. The total agricultural acreage is 627,000 mu, with the per-capita cultivated land of 15000 mu. The area lies 2040 to 3754 meters above sea-level. The annual average temperature is 5.7 degrees centigrade and the annual precipitation 600mm. The traffic is quite convenient in Min County, with the road network extending in all directions, state highway No. 212, province highway No. 306 and Mindai Highway running through the whole county. Located at such advantageous position, the county has rich special resources and brisk trade, known as 'land port' and ' millennium area of medicines'. It has been said since ancient times that the place is' accessible to Qinghai in the West, to Sichuan in the South and to the Shanxi in the East', being an important town on 'tea-horse route' and the commodity distribution center in south Gansu.

With a long history and brilliant prehistoric culture, Min County used to be the home of ancient people by the both sides of Tao River during the prosperous time of matriarchal clan society in primitive communes. Lying within Yongzhou, the territory belonged to Xiqiang area in Xia, Shang, Zhou dynasties and to Qin State in the Pre-Qin Period. In the year of 623 B.C., Min County was included in the territory of Qin State and the county system was established before Qin's unification of six hegemonic states. Being close to Tao River in the north, the county was called Lin Tao until the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties. Ten years after Emperor West Weiwen's unification in the Northern Dynasties (544 A.D.), Min State was set up. The name was changed to Min County in 1913. After the peaceful liberation in 1949, the special administrative area of Min County was initially set up, administering six counties of Min County, Longxi, Zhang County, Huichuan, Lintan, Weiyuan and one bureau of Zhuoni. The special area was withdrawn and put under Wudu area in 1950, and put under Dingxi area in 1985, named as‘the area of angelica in China','the area of flowers in Gansu Province','the area of flowers in China' and 'the base of folk song survey and collection for U.N.'. It's cold and wet in Min County, with the rainfall concentrated in the months from June to September, which accounts for 64.5% of the whole year. Richly endowed by nature with water power resources, the area has the annual average flow of 4.2 billion square meters, by which 8 cascade hydroelectric water power stations can be built. Now two stations have already been built and one is under construction, and five more under preparation. Lush forest and rich vegetation provide the area with highly advantageous conditions for summer resort, tourist attraction and the base of planting natural Chinese medicines.

The whole area is of plateau landscape, covered with rolling hills and crisscrossed ditches and channels, where Dalaliang on the border of Min County and Diebu is 3754 meters above sea level, the highest in Min County, while Mawuyoufang Village is 2040 meters above sea level, the lowest in the county, with the altitude difference of 1707 meters. The geological structure is of the western part of complicated structrual belt at Xiqinling and arc structure. The ancient geograghical environment was characterized with Qinlin Trough, deposited with various huge and thick rocks and containing a variety of fossils of creatures. Underground igneous activities are very intense and folded fracture tectonics well developed, providing favorable conditions and storage place for a great quantity of mineral resources, including more than 30 varieties of gold, antimony, zinc, aluminium, agate, marbles, granite, peat, gypsum, garnet and others. The area containing deposits of gold covers over 1000 square kilometers. Especially, there are abundant resources of peat, with 74 deposits and total storage of 148 million tons in the county, such as Dacaotan of Mazichuan Countryside Community and Langdutan of Lujing Town, where the plentiful storage is of great value for development and utilization.

Min County has extremely abundant herb resources. There are 238 categories of angelica herbs and 164 categories of useful Chinese medicinal herbs. 'Min Angelica', the top grade angelica in the world, has been quite popular both at home and abroad, named 'Chinese gynecology ginseng'. 16700 acres are planted with various Chinese medicinal herbs including angelica, Radix Hedysari, Astragalus root, codonopsis pilosula and others. 'Min Angelica' is well known at home and abroad for its high medicinal content, quality, output and sales volume. With a planting history of over 1500 years, the annual output of 'Min Angelica' is above 50000 tons, among which 80% for export as the local famous specialities and the main financial source for the farmers.

Min County has glorious revolutionary history. During 25000 km Long March in 1935 and 1936, the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army passed by the county area twice after having breached 'the natural barrier Lazikou' and set up at this place 'Gansu Soviet Government' and 'Gansu Provincial Committee of CPC' with He Chang Gong elected as chairman. Min Zhou Conference was held here by Northwest Bureau of CPC Central Committee and 'Plan for Tong Zhuang Jing Hui Campaign' was laid then. Also in this area, the Red Army spent 57 days for rest and reorganization, establishing over 30 Soviet political powers at county, countryside community and village levels, and more than 3000 local people joined the Red Army.

The cultural resources are very rich in Min County. The local inkstone, flowers, potted landscapes, paper-cuts, embroidery and other deposits demonstrate the unique and profoundness of folk culture and support the prosperous development of culture and art. Min County is the area of Tao Inkstone, which has been developed for a long time and is popular now at home and abroad. Early in the Song Dynasty, the poet Huang Ting Jian once wrote a poem to admire Tao Inkstone. The county has put the efforts on research, development and innovation of Tao Inkstone, which was unique in design and elaborate in workmanship, and put more efforts on upgrading the cultural taste and improving workmanship of the inkstone, for being elaborate, serialization and scale expansion. With a transition realized from quantitive change to quality change, the product has won awards many times in the exhibitions both in and outside the province. In 1997, the 'Re-unification' inkstone was specially made at Tao Inkstone Factory of Min County to be presented by the people's government of Gansu Province to Hongkong as a gift to congratulate the return of Hongkong, which made Tao Inkstone famous both in China and abroad. Afterwards, more inkstones were produced, such as 'Great Unity of Chinese Nationalities' for celebrating the 50th anniversary of foundation of the People's Republic of China, 'Orient Dancing Lion' for celebrating the 80th anniversary of foundation of CPC and greeting the 16th conference of the Party, 'Shenzhou' series as gifts to Jiuquan Launch Center for celebrating successful launching of 'Shenzhou Spacecraft', 'Chinese Dragon', 'Orient Dragon', 'Millennium Dragon', 'Phoenix Twittering Over the Country', 'Longlife' and 'Dream of Red Chamber' etc., which were collected by domestic and foreign notable persons and relevant departments and have become the representative Tao Inkstone of Min County.

Over the fertile land full of hope, Erlang Mountains are bowing the heads to entertain the guests from all quarters sincerely and Tao River water is bellowing a melody of melcome. Since the 16th Conference of the Party, the county committee and government have focused on the goal after investigation and research that they are working their way toward a well-off life after the basic problems of food and clothing having been solved properly. They put it as the first importance to speed up the development and make the most of the historic opportunity of great western development. With the overall concept that Min County is to be built into an economic development platform for the region in the south of Mu Zai Lin and into a developed county with Southern Gansu characteristics as well as a commodity distribution center, they are giving a full play to resources and comparable location advantages, and making distinctive industries bigger and stronger, for all-round improvement of the three pillar industries of medicinal herbs, grass supply and potatos, and for foster of the three new industries of water power, minerals and travel. In accordance with the requirement that project is the focus of development and enterprise the focus of reform, opening-up pushes development, industry drives agriculture, private-owned enterprise promotes state-owned enterprise and market is distributed with resources, utmost efforts have been made to advance agriculture industrilization, urbanization and informatization, and to ensure the increase of income of urban and rural residents, the increase of fiscal revenue and the stability of socety. Now with kind feeling and good investment environment, 450000 diligent and generous people of Min County welcome the clients from all directions to the hopeful land for joint exploitation and utilization of resources and for common development.