Situated 75km northwest of Dunhuang, the Jade Gate Pass was a strategic pass on the ancient Silk Road. It was so named because the jade of Honan in what is now Xinjiang region was transported to central China through this pass. In his poem Go North of Great Wall, the Tang Dynasty poet Wang Zhihuan had the famous line, " Beyond the Yumen Pass the breath of Sring has never crossed". The mention of Yumen in the poem has made the pass all the more famous.
