1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
China
Compare this sourced profile of Lanzhou, China before planning. Stable fields identify the place; confirm current transport, access and opening details with official sources.
01What the data says — and does not say
This page separates the checked GeoNames row for Lanzhou—3,000,000, Asia/Shanghai, and source coordinates—from live travel claims. Those fields identify and compare the record; they do not prove current transport, accessibility, census totals, or a City Atlas Club visit.
Wikidata's localized description: prefecture-level city in Gansu, China.
02This city's dataset fingerprint
The source row behind Lanzhou is GeoNames ID 1804430. Its recorded administrative path is Lanzhou Shi → Gansu → China, and GeoNames classifies the place as a first-order administrative seat. Lanzhou occurs once as a primary city label in this atlas sample; the numeric ID remains the durable source key if names change. The city row itself was updated 2026-04-13; that date belongs to the source record, not to every transport or visitor detail in the real destination.
Within the fixed 1,206-record atlas, Lanzhou ranks 119 by recorded population. Inside the 296 selected China entries it ranks 45; inside the 632 entries in its broad region it ranks 80. Its 3,000,000 population value is 2.57 times the 1,165,375 median for the country cohort and 2.97 times the 1,008,426 regional median. Lanzhou falls between the leading tenth and quarter of this atlas's China population cohort. Lanzhou's recorded value reaches at least twice the country-cohort median in this snapshot. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Lanzhou's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Xining at 196.94 km with 1,677,177 recorded people; Zhongwei at 201.54 km with 1,174,600 recorded people; Wuwei at 233.94 km with 1,010,295 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 37 km. Compared with Xining, Lanzhou's recorded population is 1.79 times as large. Against Lanzhou, Xining follows Xining Shi → Qinghai → China in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected China cohort, uses the shared Asia/Shanghai identifier, and carries the same first-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is below Lanzhou's. Against Lanzhou, Zhongwei follows Zhongwei Shi → Ningxia → China in the source. Its point has higher latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected China cohort, uses the shared Asia/Shanghai identifier, and carries second-order administrative seat rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Lanzhou's. Against Lanzhou, Wuwei follows Wuwei Shi → Gansu → China in the source. Its point has higher latitude and lower longitude; it belongs to the same selected China cohort, uses the shared Asia/Shanghai identifier, and carries second-order administrative seat rather than first-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is below Lanzhou's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 987 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Lanzhou's nearest-coordinate gap belongs to the wider half of atlas distances. This pattern can reveal whether other catalog references are geographically close, but it cannot establish whether a border crossing is possible or practical, or whether rail, road, fare, or journey-time connections exist. Read as one record signature, GeoNames 1804430, the coordinate pair 36.0570 / 103.8399, country rank 45 of 296, and neighbor GeoNames 1788852 at 196.94 km bind Lanzhou to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Lanzhou's reference point is 36.0570° north and 103.8399° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Shanghai is shared by 291 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA is shared by 429 rows. Lanzhou's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Lanzhou's point falls in the middle-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Lanzhou's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Lanzhou, so the profile preserves that missing value instead of guessing terrain. Together these fields form a reproducible identity check for this page, not a claim about walkability, climate or accessibility.
03Nearby atlas references
Lanzhou's closest other entries in this atlas are Xining (196.94 km), Zhongwei (201.54 km), Wuwei (233.94 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Lanzhou, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2026-04-13; the atlas checked the dataset 2026-08-04. Available Wikidata fields were verified in the same run.
GeoNames data: CC BY 4.0. Wikidata labels and descriptions: CC0 1.0.