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Jiayuguan Gliding Base, ranking the third largest gliding base in the world, is a comprehensive aviation club where the main business is gliding. Every July, an international gliding festival is held there.

In the Qilian Mountain, there exists virgin forest, which covers an area of 157,000 hectares with wood reserve of about two million cubic meters. The plants there include spruce, cypress, poplar and willow, and various shrubberies. The Qilian Mountain is one of the major forest zones in Gansu Province. In the dense trees and snow peaks herds of deer can be seen.

The Fresco Tombs located in the northwestern Gobi desert 20 km away from Jiayuguan City, and between Xincheng Township of Jiayuguan City and Dingjiazha Township of Jiuquan City.

On the bank of the Taolaihe River, 5 km away from the Jiayuguan, The First Mound under the Heaven, is the first watch tower in the western end of the Great Wall. People also refer to it as "Taolaihe Mound" because it is located on the bank of the Taolaihe River. It was built in 1533 by General Lipan, and served as a watch tower. It was of a pyramid shape. After so many years of erosion by wind and storm, it has collapsed in many parts and now only the bottom of it exists. It measures 14.3 m in length, 15.7 m in width and 8.3 m in height. It is on a cliff of about 50 m high and the Taolaihe River flows beside it. The river washes the earth on the cliff continuously, which puts the existing mound in a dangerous position.  Even though the local government has built a dam on the upper reach of the river to reduce the washing effects, the south-eastern corner of the mound has collapsed and washed away in the river.

The glacier was named after the time when it was found in July 1st 1958 by the Snow and Glacier Research Team of Chinese Academy of Science. The altitude of the lowest part of the glacier is about 4300 meters and that of the peak is 5150 meters. Its total area is 3 square meters and its total length is 30.5 km. It is 78 meters thick in average. And its slope is less than 45 degrees. The annual water storage is 160 million cubic meters, which makes it a large solid fresh water reservoir. Far from the glacier people can feel its spectacularity: a crystal and bright world under the blue sky and white clouds. A five-kilometer path winds its way into the glacier, by which a monument named as "immortal mountain and snow head" stands. The total tour area is about 4 square kilometers.

The Great Wall museum opened to visitor in October 1989 and it is the first one to exhibit the Great Wall culture in a comprehensive and systematic way.

These carvings are distributed on the cliffs along the Heshan valley 20 km away from the city in the northwest. These shallow carvings on the dark-purple rocks look rough and clumsy. They show ancient people's activities like hunting, dancing, and arrow-shooting. This spot is included in the provincial relic's protection list.

The Jiayuguan Pass, known as the "Strategic pass Under the Heaven", is at the western end of the Great Wall. The Jiayuguan Pass was one of great strategic importance. The existing Jiayuguan Pass walls were built in the time of Ming Dynasty. The construction of these walls began in 1372. It was not until 1539 that they became a complete defense system, which had three defense lines, the entrenchment, the outer wall, and the inner wall. The inner wall is 10.7 meters high and encloses a city section of about 25,000 square meters. It has two gates, namely the Rouyuan Gate in the west and the Guanghua Gate in the east (Rouyuan means appeasement and Guanghua means brilliance in Chinese). Both of the two gates have defensive enclosure structures.  On the walls there are 14 pavilions. Inside the wall, there are also many spots of interest, such as the General's Mansion, the Well Pavilion, and Wenchang Pavilion. Outside the eastern gate, there is a Guanyu's Temple (in honor of General Guanyu who lived in the period of Three Kingdoms), a memorial archway, and an opera tower. The overall layout of the section in the inner wall is integrated and well-organized.

The Suspended Wall is a part of the Great Wall.  The wall here was built on the ridge with the gradient of 45 degrees. It is high in the air and it looks as if it fell down from the top of the hill. So people refer to this section of the Great Wall as the "Suspended Wall". The Suspended Wall, the extension of the walls at the Jiyuguan Pass towards the north, was an integral part of the ancient defense system at the Jiayuguan Pass. The wall, whose construction was started in 1539, was made of gravel and yellow earth by tamping. It was originally 1.5 km long, but now it is only 750 meters long. It was renovated in 1987 and there are now 3 towers, two at the ends of the wall, and one in the middle.

Jiayuguan City, with a history of more than 600 years, is an important city of tourism on the ancient Silk Road. It used to be an important pass in ancient times. In Ming Dynasty, Jiayuguan Pass was built up and the pass was composed of defensive walls, gates and army camps. It was not easy to build such a grand pass. At that time, the construction facilities were simple. So many workers were employed for the construction work. And many stories concerning the construction of the pass have passed down and some of them are still popular with the local people. Now the ancient pass has been expanded into a modern city in China's northwest and it has becomes a place of interest. It is rich in tourism resources: the well-known Jiayuguan Pass, the suspended section of the Great Wall, the beacon tower relics, the Museum of the Great Wall, the Xincheng Fresco, the Qiyi Glacier, the Gobi desert and the its landscape, the Wenshu Mountain Grotto, the Heshan Mountain Grotto and the International Gliding Base. Jiayuguan is a charming city. It is one end of the world-known Great Wall (The Great Wall which starts from the Shanhaiguan Pass winds its way thousand miles and finally stops at Jiayuguan city). In the city, visitor can see tall furnaces pointing to the sky, large buildings standing side by side, rows of poplar trees guarding the wide streets. Jiayuguan City is also referred to as "the steel city in China's northwest". In 1958 the Jiuquan Steel Company was established in the city and has developed into the largest steel company in the region. Industry, tourism and agriculture are the mainstays of the city's economy. Jiayuguan City measures 40 km from east to west and 35 km from north to south. Its total area is 2935 square kilometers, and the urban area is 60 square kilometers. Its total population is 140,000 and there are people of 12 nationalities living in the city: Han, Hui, Mongol, Tibetan, Manchu, Dongxiang, Yugu, Korean, Zhuang, Tu, Baoan and Uygur. Obviously Jiayuguan City is a city of immigrants and its residents are from other parts of China, mostly from Shandong Province and the northeast of China.