Ansichow

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Mandarin 安西州.

Proper noun

Ansichow

1. (historical) Anxi, a historical department in Gansu, China whose capital is located in present-day Guazhou County, known as Anxi County until 2006.
   • 1912 September 7, “Cities of Old Cathay”, in North China Herald, volume CIV, number 2352, page 672:

     Chinese annals and no doubt later-day official correspondence describe such miserable, old-world town as Ansichow as a miniature Peking. And Ansichow is the first Chinese town in China proper from which traveller ignorant of the country gets his initial impression of it.

   • 1922, Sun Yat-sen, The International Development of China, G. P. Putnam's Sons, page 139:

     The line starts from Ansichow westward to Tunhwang, and skirts the southern edge of the Lobnor Swamp to Chochiang.

   • 1934, George Babcock Cressey, China's Geographic Foundations: A Survey of the Land and Its People, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., page 268:

     The southern margin is marked by sand-buried cities, now desolate but formerly the site of extensive settlements which were connected by a road from Yarkand through Khotan to Ansichow.