Tekes Bagua City

　　Tekes Bagua City is truly unique — it is home to the world’s only well-preserved Bagua (Eight Trigrams) layout city, boasts the largest and most intact cluster of ancient Wusun tombs, the former summer capital site of the ancient Wusun Kingdom, where Princess Jieyou of the Han Dynasty initiated the construction of grand halls, pioneering architectural traditions in the Wusun Kingdom. The area also features grassland stone figures, ancient Saka tombs, historic rock paintings, and wind-eroded rock caves. It has distinctive vertical climate zones and landscapes, with “four seasons on one mountain and different skies within ten miles.” The great canyon combines grandeur, danger, wonder, and serenity, so much so that a poem praises: “If you ask where paradise lies, the shepherd boy points to Bagua City.”

　　Upon entering the county town, you will see a sculpture known as the city emblem, which features two black and white orbs symbolizing the yin and yang eyes of the Taiji. It is surrounded by granite, engraved with eight different trigrams. The outer perimeter of the emblem consists of 64 iron pillars, representing the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching. At the heart of the city stands the over 50-meter-high Bagua Observation Tower. According to accounts, the tower was initially built in 1968 during the Cultural Revolution, with quotes from Chairman Mao carved on its four sides, and was then called the Quotation Tower. At that time, it was only 22.5 meters tall, featuring a three-story, eight-sided brick-concrete structure. After seismic reinforcement and renovation in 1993, it was renamed the Observation Tower. Since then, it has become the best spot to view the panoramic scenery of Bagua City.

　　The Bagua City is designed with the central Bagua Culture Square as the Taiji’s “yin and yang” core. Eight main streets radiate outward at equal distances and angles according to the Bagua directions, each stretching 1,200 meters in length. Every approximately 360 meters, a ring road connects the eight main streets, totaling four ring roads extending outward from the center. The first ring road encircles the central Bagua Culture Square, with shops and public service facilities lining its outer edge, their buildings connected end-to-end. The second ring road is mainly lined with government offices, Party institutions, and enterprises, featuring lower building density and small structures shaded by greenery. Between the third and fourth ring roads and their surrounding areas are urban residential communities, mostly consisting of single-family courtyards, interspersed with large orchards. Specifically, the first ring has eight streets, the second sixteen, the third thirty-two, and the fourth sixty-four. These streets are arranged according to the Bagua directions, forming sixty-four hexagrams and fully reflecting the numerical principles of the 64 hexagrams and 386 lines of the I Ching. To prevent people from getting lost, directional signs are placed on each street. The entire county town is laid out in a radial circular pattern, with streets and roads interconnected like a magical labyrinth — all routes lead somewhere and every road connects to another. It is the only well-preserved, fully structured, and largest Bagua City in the world today.

　　Tekes County in Xinjiang is renowned for its Bagua layout. In 1996, local authorities removed traffic lights from the roads, making Bagua City a city without any traffic signals. Legend has it that the original layout of Tekes Bagua City was designed by Qiu Chuji, one of the Seven True Masters of the Quanzhen School of Taoism during the Southern Song Dynasty. At the invitation of Genghis Khan, the Taoist master Qiu Chuji traveled to the Western Regions. When he passed through the Tekes River Valley, he was captivated by the land’s topography and thus designed the Bagua City. The city has a radial circular layout with streets arranged like an intricate maze, where all roads connect and every street links to another. Moreover, the city is rich in ethnic customs, profound historical culture, and stunning natural scenery. Some of the highlights of Tekes include: the world’s largest and most complete Bagua City; the only place in the world where Wusun culture intersects with I Ching culture; China’s westernmost Bagua City and location of I Ching culture; the westernmost point of Taoist cultural dissemination in China; the location of the ancient Wusun Kingdom, the largest nomadic state in China’s Western Regions; the place with the highest number of existing Wusun tombs in China; the location with the most historically recorded imperial princesses married off in ancient China; the site of the first historically documented marriage alliance involving a Chinese princess; the location of the ancient “Han Grassland,” the largest horse racing ground in ancient China; the place with the highest number of ancient nomadic “command tents” (yazhang) in Chinese history; the area with the longest and closest historical marriage alliances between the Han Dynasty and the ancient nomadic states of the Western Regions; and the site of China’s only mountain named after the Wusun — Mount Wusun...

　　Perhaps no description of Tekes County could fully convince you, because the mystery of Tekes lies in its profound heritage of I Ching culture and Wusun traditions.