Yanan

Yan'an or Yenan , city (1991 pop. 115,900), N Shaanxi prov., China, on the Yen River. Now a market and tourist center, it is famed as the terminus of the long march and the de facto capital (1936-47, 1948-9) of the Chinese Communists, who established arsenals, several colleges, and a military academy (now a museum) there. The city's many loess caves served as homes and air raid shelters during World War II. As a hallowed site of the revolution, Yan'an attracts thousands of pilgrims. Points of interest include the former homes of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, and the nine-story Bao pagoda built during the Sung dynasty (960-1279) and now made into a monument to the revolution. Many people still live in cave dwellings. Oil is produced at nearby Yanchang.

Bibliography: See J. Myrdal, Report from a Chinese Village (tr. by M. Michael, 1965); J. K. Emmerson, A View From Yenan (1985).

Yan'an (Yen-an) A town and district in the northern Shaanxi Province in China, which became the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Long March in 1935. An initial period of insecurity ended when hostilities with the National Revolutionary Army stopped, owing to the formation of the United Front in 1937. Thereafter, the Yan'an Province was developed into a model Soviet. Land reforms, rapidly improving social services (more schools and health centres), lower taxation, and political organization gained the party mass support and a reputation throughout China which contrasted sharply with the inefficiency and graft of Chiang Kai-shek's Guomintang government. During the Sino-Japanese war, CCP membership consequently increased from 20,000 to almost three million, while its army, protected by guerrilla war tactics instead of open warfare, grew to number 1.5 million. By 1945, more than ninety million people lived under Communist control. The Yan'an period, then, marked the most successful episode of Communist China, and was the foundation of its success in the Chinese Civil War.

Yan'an, Shaanxi/China Fuzu County Founded as a frontier post during the Sui dynasty (581–618), it was given its present name in 1369. It gets the first part of this name from the Yan River on which it lies from yán ‘extend’ or ‘prolong’. With ān ‘peace’ the name could be said to mean ‘Eternal Peace’.