Talk:Xi'an/Archive 1

Archive 1

Apostrophe

Correctly pinyinized, the city's name is Xi'an, but the official pinyinization is Xian (similar to the nonstandard romanization used for Shaanxi, the province whose capital is, ironically, Xian.

--Xiaopo

Is the form 'Xian' ever used with tone marks? Morwen 23:56, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The use of ' in pinyin is NOT a tone mark.

Thank-you, but I don't believe anyone said otherwise. Morwen 07:38, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The ' mark in Xi'an is an indicator to disambiguate this term as a two syllable term, which is written in two Chinese characters. When spelled without the ' mark, xian is one pinyin syllable for one Chinese characters. (See the Chinese characters that have the xian pronunciation here). Therefore, regardless of how many google hits in each of these terms, Xi'an is the correct name, but Xian is an incorrect term, because the readers would incorrectly read it as one syllable. Kowloonese 07:11, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

On the other hand, http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~chifc/pinyin.html indicates that Xian is the official romanization. It saith:

Use the official irregular Hanyu Pinyin forms 陕西省 Shaanxi Province (the form is intended to avoid confusion with 山西省) and 西安市 Xian City (strictly speaking it should be Xi'an).

. --Xiaopo 02:06, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I looked through that page and it didn't say that Xian was the correct romanization. In fact, it said the opposite - that the apostrophe is required. -Spencer195 17:46, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

In that page, it says "In cases where ambiguity is possible, the apostrophe is used to mark the border between two characters (=syllables). The apostrophe is used to indicate the absence of an initial consonant, where it is otherwise impossible to see where one syllable ends and the next begins. 延安 is Yan'an (not *Yanan), but it is 亚尼 Yani and 鸭暖 Yanuan (both names of townships); 民歌 is minge , while 名额 is ming'e; 暗暗 is an'an. 礼安 is Li'an to distinguish it from 联 lian; but 乐安 is Lean, for *lean does not exist as a syllable in Modern Standard Chinese. 天安门 is Tiananmen and not *Tian'anmen, for *tia does not exist as a syllable in Modern Standard Chinese. Hanyu Pinyin does not use any other ways of marking the boundary between individual characters in a word. *Bei-jing, *Bei-Jing and *BeiJing for Beijing are wrong."

And I am sure that Xi'an is absolutely right, just like two-character word 礼安 is Li'an to distinguish it from one-charachter word 联 (Lian). --Koyn 17:08, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

No official placename ever has tone marks. Same thing in Taiwan, no official placename has tone #. Which is not very good, because unless the place is famous, ever native speakers cannot pronounce them correctly (due to the tone confusion). --Menchi 00:01, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Hmm... we want to use the most common English name, so Xiaopo seems to have it right. Xi'an has 253K google hits, and Xian has 433K. Reverse, however, for the phrases "City of Xian" and "City of Xi'an", though not to the same degree (roughly equal). A tough call what the name should be. Certainly we should have Xiaopo's comments about official vs correct pinyinization at the top. Kahn

I really question your approach of blindly counting the hits of Xian from Google. By using the dictionary entries you get 60+ Chinese characters with the pronounciation of xian. Your 433K hits included 60+ words that may or may not be related to the city of Xi'an. Even the hits of "City of Xian" may or may not be related to the subject of this article. Kowloonese 07:19, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Kowloonese; your Google search is getting results for Xian that are unrelated to 西安. -Spencer195 17:46, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Check out the title banners of these official sites in the city:

• Municipal government: "Xi'an China"
• Xi'an Shiyou University
• Xi'an Jiaotong University

They all use the apostrophe.

Merriam-Webster uses apostrophe as well [1]. As do Columbia Encyclopedia [2] and Encarta [3].

--Menchi 07:50, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I checked out two fairly well-made maps: Collins (London) 1999 and National Geographic 1994. They both use the apostrophe. --Menchi 11:24, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I too believe that this page should be located under Xi'an, not Xian. According to http://www.personal.leeds.ac.uk/~chifc/pinyin.html, the apostrophe is required in order to distinguish it from the romanization of the one syllable words 鲜，先, 险，etc. And I don't believe Xian is a common or official irregular usage for 西安; Most texts that I see use Xi'an; Xian occurs rarely and is simply an error. All dictionaries use Xi'an; in fact, in order to get my Chinese IME to type it correctly, I have to use Xi'an. Therefore, since 3 people want Xi'an and 2 want Xian, and especially since the official municipal website lists Xi'an, I'm going to move this page to Xi'an with a redirect from Xian. -Spencer195 17:46, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

---

What's wrong with the link Xi'an in my page? Anyone konws? Cheers.--Koyn 16:38, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Database sometimes has lag. It'll be fine within a few days. --Menchi 18:33, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Try deleting it, saving it, and putting it back again. -Spencer195 21:33, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Still red, :( --Koyn 22:50, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

I fixed it for you. I hope you don't mind me editing your user page.  :) -Spencer195 23:22, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

It's ok now, cheers!  :) --Koyn 10:08, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Daxing

Would it not be better, in the historical context of the city's reconstruction and adoption as the capital of the Sui, to translate Daxing (大兴) as Great Reconstruction or Great Beginning rather than Great Excitement? (Ref - the Sui dynasty entry) Tomtom08 13:00, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Chinese Charactors after a Wikified Word

There is no need to, and really should not, put corresponding chinese charactors after wikified words or phrases.

--Chenzjun 08:22, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Shaanxi History Museum

In Architecture section, it is saying that Shaanxi History Museum is an example of New Tang Style. However, should that building be Han-styled instead?

--Chenzjun 18:40, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Userbox for People from Xi'an

To whom collects userboxes in their user page, I just created one: {{User:UBX/Xi'an}} --Chenzjun 20:01, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Modern Ark 60.jpg

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BetacommandBot 04:35, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Chinese Pyramids

Please add a paragraph about 100 pyramids in the environs of Xi'an. This is a great article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AverageTurkishJoe (talk • contribs) 07:41, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Xi'an Population Reference not valid

Anyone please verify this. I tried to search for more recent authoritative statistics but could not find. I could use a bit of help here.Wei.cs (talk) 14:31, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Xi'an was sistered yesterday with Kalamata (a greek city). links in greek: http://www.google.com/hostednews/epa/article/ALeqM5jzLuTm8WJWl3kMgne4IASHeTWd_Q , or google"ΑΔΕΛΦΟΠΟΙΗΣΗ ΚΑΛΑΜΑΤΑΣ ΣΙΑΝ", http://www.google.gr/search?q=%CE%91%CE%94%CE%95%CE%9B%CE%A6%CE%9F%CE%A0%CE%9F%CE%99%CE%97%CE%A3%CE%97+%CE%9A%CE%91%CE%9B%CE%91%CE%9C%CE%91%CE%A4%CE%91%CE%A3+%CE%A3%CE%99%CE%91%CE%9D&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:el:official&client=firefox-a in greek.

World largest solar center October 2009

Citation: In October, Applied will be opening the world’s largest solar research center — in Xian, China. Gotta go where the customers are. So, if you like importing oil from Saudi Arabia, you’re going to love importing solar panels from China. Source: New York Times, article about Applied Materials photovoltaik factories --Pege.founder (talk) 19:48, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Xi'an, the history

Have't mentioned Xi'an as the start of The Silk Road... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.169.194.201 (talk) 14:35, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

City flower is possibly incorrect

I don't believe guava flower is the city flower of Xi'an,it should be pomegranate flower. I grew up in Xi'an and pomegranate was a local produce ,not guava which is a fruit that grows in tropical climate. However, I'm not an expert on flowers so i'm not entierly sure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.151.226.89 (talk) 07:53, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation

It would be helpful I think to indicate how the city name is pronounced. 128.111.146.209 (talk) 03:04, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

well unfortunately we do not have a file with the recorded pronunciation and there is no IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) listed. for now on, go to the pinyin article to see some equivalents in English; "Xi" should be similar to English "she". Now with "an"... definitely do NOT interpret it as the English word "an". more like British pronunciation of "and", obviously without the "d". --HXL's Roundtable, and Record 03:38, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Mt. Lishan redundant?

Under the tourism sites section, the sentence "Huaqing Hot Springs (華清池), at the foot of Mt. Lishan..." Since shan in Chinese is mountain, I believe the reference should be Mount Li (骊山). 76wins (talk) 05:33, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course it is redundant, and I have fixed it accordingly.  The Tartanator  16:34, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Mount Hua

I am ok when it is said the Mount is of the part of the city.If the statement is Huashan is near the city of not unter its administration,thats ok.Or, there must be a missunderstanding of the location of the mount. Thanks a lot. 华山不在西安市的管辖范围内，而是渭南市，如果提及华山请注明这一点，谢谢。Jiangyu911 (talk) 07:24, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Xi'an/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

The contents of this article are too shallow and listy to earn B class. As one of the most commonly visited cities in China, this is definitely of high importance. --Danaman5 01:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 01:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 10:58, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Population

How is it possible that Xi'an defined as having 10 thousand square kilometers (sub-provincial city) yields less than 9 million inhabitants, but when we take into account only 4 thousand sq. km (metropolis) it performs almost 14 million? Isn't that a better idea to focus on the urban area which gives actually 6 million? Propositum (talk) 17:47, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Sian, Hsian, Hsi-An, Xi'an, or Xian

What spelling should be used? Sian is the Postal Map spelling, Hsian/Hsi-An (depending on whether or not you drop the hyphen) is the Wade-Giles spelling. Xi'an or Xian is pinyin.

I would recommend Sian for three reasons.

1. It is closest to the pronunciation of the word

2. It is the name in many historical documents

3. Postal Map has seniority over pinyin

OttomanJackson User:OttomanJackson 16:36, 18 October 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by OttomanJackson (talk • contribs)

We saw a terracotta warrior docu last night where it was spelled with a Q, I think Qi'an or so. Sian could easily be mispronounced and sound like the old country name Siam. A uniform spelling though is definitely needed. 2001:8003:A928:800:8AD:9243:8588:846C (talk) 02:58, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

License plate discussion

This may have a place in the article if it were cleaned up and had some sources:

Several suggested abbreviations include Feng (丰, the city's first name when it was founded as the new capital of Zhou, meaning abundance, greatness, and bumper harvest), Hao (Chinese: 镐; pinyin: Hào, derived from the name of Zhou dynasty's capital Haojing), or Tang (Chinese: 唐; pinyin: Táng, from the name of the Tang dynasty).

Otherwise, we should just mention what the abbreviation actually is and if/when it changes. — LlywelynII 01:44, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Photo gallery

The general policy is to avoid smooshing text between images if we can help it. I'll leave these here

• 
  Maps of "Si-gnan-fou" and "Tchouang-lan" from Du Halde's 1735 Description of China, based on accounts by Jesuit missionaries
• 
  Site of front hall of Chang'an's Weiyang Palace under the Western Han (206 BC–AD 9)
• 
  Site of the Hanyuan Hall of Chang'an's Daming Palace under the Tang
• 
  Statues at the tomb of the Tang emperor Gaozong
• 
  Xi'an in 1908
• 
  Statue of Lady Gongsun, a sword-dance master of the Tang

since the current history section is too short to put them along the side and they don't seem quite interesting enough to put elsewhere in the article. Maybe once the history section or History of Xi'an article are longer, there will be good homes for them? — LlywelynII 02:06, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Nestorian X, Y, Z, Z2, Z3...

shouldn't be bolded here (that's for alt names of Xi'an) and, indeed, don't belong in this article at all. Moved to the Nestorian Stele article. — LlywelynII 16:28, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Beijing Skyline.webp

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 01:54, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

New administrative division?

Is 经开区 (or 西安经济技术开发区) a new administrative division that we should add to this article? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 04:26, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Names of past dynasties in Xi'an

Hello, I think it needs to be edited about "Names of past dynasties in Xi'an". WANG XIAOLING995 14:13, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

To add to article

To add to this article: mention of the Xixian New Area (西咸新区). 173.88.246.138 (talk) 16:48, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 October 2021 and 9 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): BaixinH.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:12, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Mount Hua is not a part of Xi'an

Mount Huashan is not a part of Xi'an but the Weinan city.The photo must be delected or corrected.Jiangyu911 (talk) 04:41, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

New image (with the Bell Tower as replacement) uploaded. —HXL's Roundtable and Record 04:48, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

This appears to have been reversed? The images now include Huashan and do not include a picture of the Drum Tower; the captions and images are currently mismatched. 2001:B011:1005:56B9:3CB7:5ACD:9EAE:68A7 (talk) 06:33, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Xian

It's correct to have the page here instead of at Xian, but 100% the alt spelling needs to mentioned before Sian in the lead. It's not formally correct under the rules of pinyin, but it is extremely common in English usage regardless and we already have a note explaining the issues in the name section. See WP:LEADSENTENCE and MOS:BOLDSYN.

In fact, Ngram clearly shows Xian has been the primary form, is now still a common form, and Sian is now uncommon enough that it can just be mentioned in the Name section. — LlywelynII 14:01, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Xixian New District

Shouldn't we mention that the Xixian New District (西咸新区) has been established in Weiyang District? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 02:50, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Something is fishy about the census population

I noticed that the citation for the population in the lead does not match the actual number, which seems to be only found on a German demographic website. The population down to the person seems very odd for Chinese census results, which are often rounded. Is that number original research from the German website? I can't find it in the Chinese census. Mattximus (talk) 16:46, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

The exact population of Xi'an City will be written in the yearbook, and the information published on the internet may be an approximate number. 蓝叶艾伦 (talk) 00:07, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

No glottal stop in IPA

Hi the IPA given for Chinese has no glottal stop between the syllables, but in the audio file there is a very prominent glottal stop.

I suspect this is a mistake in the transcription (I know in Vietnamese a glottal stop would be compulsory) but perhaps (as in English) the glottal stop is optional with the speaker just enunciating extra clearly. 82.37.100.240 (talk) 06:43, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Indeed, the glottal stop is not phonemic in Standard Chinese, or any other variety that I'm aware of. Remsense诉 06:56, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

The transcription is in square-brackets so what’s relevant is pronunciation not phonemes. Regardless of whether it is phonemic, a compulsory glottal stop should be in the phonetic transcription.

Perhaps the error here is use of square-brackets rather than normal ones. Transient Being (talk) 22:33, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

That's an oversimplification. Phonetic transcriptions may be at any level of detail. Regardless, if a glottal stop is not phonemic in a language, it's usually not compulsory. Remsense诉 22:50, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

(Sorry I meant to say slashes not normal brackets) Transient Being (talk) 11:12, 18 March 2024 (UTC)