Jiayuguan is a city built around one fort. The Ming court founded the pass in the late fourteenth century, and by the sixteenth century it marked the western limit of Chinese control on the Silk Road. It is the best-preserved of the Ming passes, which makes it a useful place to see how the wall was meant to work.
The setting does the rest. The pass stands at the narrowest point of the Hexi Corridor, with the Qilian Mountains to the south and the Black Mountains to the north, and a few kilometers of the wall run off across the Gobi on either side. The path is short, the views are open, and the fort is easy to add to a Silk Road route.
