This history museum, housed in a magnificent Confucian Temple, features more than 370,000 pieces of historical relics, mainly from the Zhou to the Tang periods (1100B.C. to 907 A.D.).

Located inside the Confucian Temple of Xi'an City is a local comprehensive museum. It was prepared in 1918 and opened to the public in 1919. Its initial name was the Educational Book Museum of Shaanxi Province. Then it was changed successively into the People's Education Hall of Shaanxi Province in 1933, the Book Museum of Shaanxi Province in 1949, and was finalized as the Shaanxi Provincial Museum when combined with the Relics Hall of Taiyuan City in 1953.The first Han (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) emperors built upon the foundations of the Qin and expanded their territory enormously. Unlike the Qin, however, they allowed the cultures of the new territories to remain intact and encouraged trade and commerce among the various parts of the empire. One envoy reached India, but the ruling king of India thought it impractical to form a defensive alliance at such a distance. Instead, a multinational trade agreement emerged, for when the envoy returned to Xian with detailed reports of the western states, he was sent back with a large delegation and items to trade. Silk was an immediate hit. (over time, silk exports reached as far as Rome, where it was a highly valued commodity.)

Legend had it that a group of big whild geese flew over, suddely one of them dropped and died on the ground. Monks were at a loss and didn't know what to do. They thought that the dead wild googse was a Buddha. They buried the goose and a pagoda was erected, hence the name, the Big Whild Goose Pogoda.

Situated inside Ci'en (Thanks-giving) Temple, four kilometres south of Xi'an city, is a well-preserved ancient building and a holy place for Buddhists.

The storeyed pagoda was an architectural marvel. It was built with layers of bricks but without any cement in between. The bracket style in traditional Chinese architecture was also used in the construction. The seams between each layer of bricks and the "prisms" on each side of the pagoda are clearly visible. The grand body of the pagoda, with its solemn appearance, simple style, and high structure, is indeed a good example of ancient people's wisdom and talent.

Pictures of the Heavenly King and of Buddha are on the doorframes and horizontal bars are on four sides of the pagoda's base. These stone sculptures display peak workmanship and show vivid shapes and smooth lines. They now serve as an important source of material for the study of painting and sculpture of the Tang dynasty. Out of these artistic works, the one on the horizontal bar of the west door is the most precious. It is a rare piece of art, now used for the study of the Tang architecture.

Inside the temple where the pagoda is situated, there are two small buildings: the one on the east side houses a bell, and the one on the west side a drum. The bell, an iron cast from the Ming dynasty, weights 15 tons. Together with the drum, the bell was used to strike time for the monks in the temple.
Inside the Great Hall of the Buddha in the temple, there are three incarnations of Sakyamuni. The one in the middle is called Dharmakaya. The one on the west side is called Bao Shen Buddha, and the one on the opposite is called Ying Shen Buddha.

In the Doctrine Chamber stands the Amitabha Buddha. On the wall at the east side of the chamber, there are three rubbings. The one in the middle is called, Xuanzang (Monk Tripitaka) Carries the Scriptures to Chang'an.

In the Tang dynasty, every successful candidate who passed the imperial examinations would have to climb up the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and write poems and inscriptions there. This ritual would symbolize a soaring career in the future. The fashion of writing poems and leaving inscriptions on the horizontal bars over doors and stone frame-works by successful candidates of the imperial examinations went on as far as the Ming dynasty. These poems and inscriptions have survived to this day as a fine reflection of the city's past.

Situated at the bottom of the City wall, the Forest of Steles is the heaviest collection of books in the world. The earliest texts date back to the Han dynasty. It is a treasure house of Chinese calligraphic art.

The Forest of Steles in Xi'an was first built in the second year of Yuanyou in the Northern Song Dynasty (1087 AD.). It has 8 exhibition rooms, 8 corridors, 8 pavilions, with a floor space of 3,000 square meters. Altogether, 2,420 blocks of famous stone tablets of the Han Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty and the successive dynasties were collected in the forest. In the Museum of the Forest of Steles, there are 1089 stone tablets on display. Among the best-known stone tablets of calligraphy are the Tablet to Cao Quan from the Han Dynasty, the Tablet to General Guangwu in the Former Qin, and the most outstanding works of the leading calligraphers such as Li Si of the Qin Dynasty, Cai Yong of the Han Dynasty, Wang Xizhi of the Jin Dynasty, Zhi Yong of the Sui Dynasty and Ouyang Xun, Yu Shinan, Zhu Suiliang, Yan Zhenqing, Liu Gongquan, Zhang Xu and Huai Su of the Tang Dynasty. The works of Yan Zhenqing alone occupies 7 blocks of stone tablets. In the collection of the Forest of Steles there is a huge amount of ancient literary works and documentation, among which the Kaicheng Inscriptions of Classics on Stone alone covers 114 tablets with 0.65 million Chinese characters.

Six to seven thousand years ago, late Neolithic people built a stable village. Banpo had about 500 people living in the village. Visitors today can see the remains of 45 houses, 2 stables, more than 200 cellars, 6 kilns, and about 250 graves. It was a matriarchal society based on farming. The houses were constructed of thatch over wood beams while the floors were sunk two to three feet into the ground. Heat was provided by a central fire. Food was stored in underground caves, dug deep enough to protect the provisions from being devoured by wildlife or contaminated by insects. Architecture, village organization, and food storage methods appear to have been strikingly similar to the way of life of some Native American plains tribes.

The Banpo worked together. They dug a trench around the entire complex both for protection and for drainage. There was a large meeting hall in the center of the village and a place for central storage. Most of the tools (e.g., axes, hoes, knives) were of stone, but some implements were of bone (e.g., needles for sewing). The stone tools look remarkably sharp, but it was still fortunate that the Banpo settled in an area where the soil was loose and easily tilled.

Art, in the form of geometric designs and human and animal figures, is found on many of the pots. Some of the pottery items have marks scratched on them that may well anticipate a form of writing. The village pottery produced specialized pots for drinking, storage, cooking, and burial. (Although adults were buried in the cemetery outside the village, children and infants were buried alongside the huts in special clay urns; the reason for this continues to be matter for speculation.)

Over the next 3000 years, the descendants of the Banpo people founded new villages, began to build cities, used jade, bronze, and copper, and increased their skills in agriculture. The first dynasty (or unified government) was called the Xia and lasted from approximately 2200 B.C. to 1700 B.C. Life changed more rapidly after that time--or so it appears from our modern-day perspective.

The Huaqing Hot Spring, situated at the foothill of Lishan ("Mt. Li"), is about 35 kilometers east of the city Xi'an.

The Nine-Dragon Pool, the Lotus Flower Pool, and the Frost Drifting Hall are the famous structures of the Huaqing Hot spring. The Tang Ming Emperor of the Tang Dynasty (618 ~ 907A.D.) and his lover Lady Yang made their home in the Frost Drifting Hall.

Close by the Frost Drifting Hall lies the Nine-Dragon Pool. The Nine-Bend Corridor, which lies to the west of the pool leads directly on to a dragon boat made out of marble. This dragon boat leads to the Nine-Dragon hot spring where the emperor used to take his baths.

At this spa, there are four hot springs. They have a flow of 112 tons an hour and a constant temperature of 43 Centigrade. The water comes up the ground from the geographic faults and cracks in the stratum about 1750-2500 meters deep.

The spring water contains limes, sodium carbonate, sodium sulfate, and other materials, which makes it suitable for bathing and the treatment of quite a few diseases such as dermatitis, rheumatism arthritis, and muscular pain.

Climb the steps east of the hot springs, and you will gradually see the Five-Room Hall where Chiang Kaishek stayed temporarily during the Xi'an Incident. Up the winding path, east of the Five-Room Hall, you will see a bridge-like structure. On summer and autumn evenings, the sun shines onto this bridge in a way that makes it look very much like a rainbow. Therefore, it gets the name the Hovering Rainbow Bridge.

Located on the Xixie Ridge ("the West Embroidery Ridge") of Lishan Mountain, the remains of the beacon tower of the Western Zhou Dynasty (1134 ~ 771B.C.) is easily identified.

Close to the Huaqing Pool on the Lishan Mountain, there are many scenic spots, such as: East Garden, Peripateticism Pavilion, The Remonstration Pavilion, Sanyuan Cave, Palace of Laozi, Peony Ditch, Evening Glow Over the Lishan Mountain, Palace of the Grand Mother, Beacon Tower, and many others.