1,206-CITY ATLASSOURCE-BACKED CITY REFERENCE
China
Compare this sourced profile of Zhangye, 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 Zhangye—507,433, 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 Zhangye is GeoNames ID 1785036. Its recorded administrative path is Zhangye Shi → Gansu → China, and GeoNames classifies the place as a second-order administrative seat. Zhangye 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 2021-12-17; 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, Zhangye ranks 1,128 by recorded population. Inside the 296 selected China entries it ranks 287; inside the 632 entries in its broad region it ranks 593. Its 507,433 population value is 0.44 times the 1,165,375 median for the country cohort and 0.50 times the 1,008,426 regional median. Zhangye sits in the lower half of this atlas's selected China entries. Zhangye's recorded value is materially below the country-cohort median used here. These comparisons describe this selected dataset only; they are not current census rankings or official urban-area boundaries.
Zhangye's three nearest other atlas coordinates are Wuwei at 220.488 km with 1,010,295 recorded people; Xining at 281.18 km with 1,677,177 recorded people; Lanzhou at 437.768 km with 3,000,000 recorded people. The closest-to-farthest distance spread is 217.28 km. Compared with Wuwei, Zhangye's recorded population is 0.50 times as large. Against Zhangye, Wuwei follows Wuwei Shi → Gansu → China in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected China cohort, uses the shared Asia/Shanghai identifier, and carries the same second-order administrative seat class. Its recorded population is above Zhangye's. Against Zhangye, Xining follows Xining Shi → Qinghai → China in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected China cohort, uses the shared Asia/Shanghai identifier, and carries first-order administrative seat rather than second-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is above Zhangye's. Against Zhangye, Lanzhou follows Lanzhou Shi → Gansu → China in the source. Its point has lower latitude and higher longitude; it belongs to the same selected China cohort, uses the shared Asia/Shanghai identifier, and carries first-order administrative seat rather than second-order administrative seat. Its recorded population is above Zhangye's. Its nearest-neighbor distance ranks 1,030 of 1,206 from shortest to longest in the same snapshot. Zhangye'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 1785036, the coordinate pair 38.9342 / 100.4517, country rank 287 of 296, and neighbor GeoNames 1803936 at 220.488 km bind Zhangye to a reproducible comparison. That combined key distinguishes the row; it is not a recommendation or evidence of a physical connection.
Zhangye's reference point is 38.9342° north and 100.4517° east. The IANA identifier Asia/Shanghai is shared by 291 city rows in this catalog, while the GeoNames class PPLA2 is shared by 341 rows. Zhangye's row carries both second- and first-order administrative labels. Zhangye's point falls in the middle-latitude coordinate band used by this atlas's row checks. Zhangye's time-zone field defines the narrower catalog cohort; its place class is shared more broadly. GeoNames supplies no elevation for Zhangye, 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
Zhangye's closest other entries in this atlas are Wuwei (220.488 km), Xining (281.18 km), Lanzhou (437.768 km).
04Verify before you book
Before visiting Zhangye, confirm changing decisions with current first-party sources:
Read how City Atlas Club verifies changing travel facts →05Sources and freshness
GeoNames updated the row 2021-12-17; 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.