The ancient capital city of Luoyang lies 120 kilometers west of Zhengzhou in west Henan province. It takes 1.5 hours from Zhengzhou to Luoyang by bus. The modern city hosts 1.38 million persons in the urban center with a total of 6.1 million.
Luoyang is one of the seven ancient capitals in China (and incidentally the start of The Silk Road). Beginning from 21st century BCE, twelve dynasties
set up their capital here, lasting more than 1,200 years in total. These dynasties are namely:
- Xia Dynasty
- Shang Dynasty
- Eastern Zhou Dynasty (Spring and Autumn period and
Warring States period)
- Eastern Han Dynasty
- Cao Wei Dynasty (Three Kingdoms Wei during Three Kingdoms Period)
- Western Jin Dynasty
- Nortern Wei Dynasty (Northern and Southern Dynasties period)
- Sui Dynasty
- Tang Dynasty
- Later Liang Dynasty
- Later Tang Dynasty
- Later Jin Dynasty
see also: Chinese Dynasties
Luoyang is also a well-known city for peonies. It is said that the Luoyang peony is "the finest under heaven". At the end of April (this year, during the period of April 15 to April 25), the Luoyang Peony Festival is held involving a large scale peony exhibition and the Luoyang traditional soup banquet.
Luoyang's main tourist attractions include Longmen Grottoes, White Horse Temple, Guan Yu Forest,
Ancient Tomb Museum, Monk Xuanzhuang's former residence, and the Shaolin Monastery at the foot of Mt. Songshan.