# Jiaohe: The Ancient City Carved into Earth in Western China

- Original post: https://www.twitter.com/i/status/2118587634000048446
- Source account: [@andreas_nigbur](https://x.com/andreas_nigbur)
- Source language: English
- Duration: 1:24
- Published: 2026-11-07
- Canonical URL: https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china

## Transcript

[0:00](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china) This city grew downward. Most of it was never built.

[0:05](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china?t=5) It was carved into the ground. This is Jiaohe in the desert of Western China on an island of earth about a mile long.

[0:16](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china?t=16) Two rivers split around it and cliffs about a hundred feet high drop on every side.

[0:22](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china?t=22) There are no city walls. The cliffs were the wall.

[0:29](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china?t=29) Builders dug down into the earth and left walls standing.

[0:34](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china?t=34) Streets, houses, and temples took shape from the same earth.

[0:39](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china?t=39) Around seven thousand people once lived up here.

[0:44](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china?t=44) The whole city is made of earth. Parts of it are about two thousand years old, and they still stand because it almost never rains here.

[0:55](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china?t=55) This island had hundreds of deep wells with rivers flowing below.

[1:02](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china?t=62) Then, after more than a thousand years, Jiaohe emptied and never filled again.

[1:08](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china?t=68) Some blame a Mongol war. Others blame the rivers running low or conflicts between faiths.

[1:15](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china?t=75) The sources still disagree.

[1:19](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/G872tkOtV91S/en/jiaohe-the-ancient-city-carved-into-earth-in-western-china?t=79) What emptied this city? A war or the desert itself?