Linxia

Linxia (simplified Chinese: 临夏; traditional Chinese: 臨夏; pinyin: Línxià), once known as Hezhou (河州), is a county-level city in the province of Gansu of the People's Republic of China. Population 285,000. It is located in the valley of the Daxia River (a right tributary of the Huanghe) southwest of Lanzhou. It is the seat of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, which is the centre of the ethnic minority of the Dongxiang. Linxia has a Muslim (Hui and Dongxiang) majority. It is the main center of the Kadariyah Sufi order. In the 19th century it was considered the center of the Muslim community of Gansu,[1] and even today it is sometimes referred to as "the Mecca of China".[2] Area code: 930