Valuing Xi’an: A Chinese capital city for 13 dynasties

Xi'an, the capital city of Chinese dynasties featured the first planned urban settlement in China and was one of the largest cities in the first millennium of world history. Xi?an was a historic and cultural city where over 3000 years of urban history continued to unfold. The expansion of the Qin capital south of the River Wei was instrumental to the building of Chang?an or Xi?an in the Han Dynasty. Liu Bang, the founder of the Dynasty, took the advice of his aides and chose Xi?an as the capital because of its geographical setting, providing strategic defense functions and abundant natural resources.