Tianshui

See also: Tiānshuǐ

English

Alternative forms

• T'ien-shui (Wade–Giles)

Etymology

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 天水 (Tiānshuǐ).

Pronunciation

• enPR: tyěnʹshwā

Proper noun

Tianshui

1. A prefecture-level city in Gansu, in northwestern China.
   • [2007, “The Years before the End of the War”, in A Girl From Shanghai: The Story of Lillian Hsu, a Medical Geneticist, a NTU Medical College Alumna‎^[2], →ISBN, →OCLC, pages 35–36:

     On the map Gansu is shaped like a dumbbell lying obliquely from east to west. Its best known city is Lanjhou, the capital, and also the gateway to the Silk Road. But we did not go there; we were heading for a relatively unknown city a few hundred miles away from Lanjhou, called Tianshuei. […]
     Finally we arrived in Tianshuei, an old, old city with impressive walls, 25 feet or more in height and at least 20 feet in thickness, surrounding the rectangular city, which runs about 1 to 2 miles north to south and 4 to 5 miles east to west.

     (Note: Tianshuei is the Tongyong Pinyin-derived name for Tianshui.)]

   • 2015 September 20, “150 students ill in China after breathing in smoke at drill”, in AP News‎^[3], archived from the original on 07 January 2024‎^[4]:

     Smoke was used to make Friday’s drill at Yifu Experimental Middle School in Gansu province more realistic, but the volume generated was too large, said the official Xinhua News Agency. It said Friday’s drill was jointly organized by the school and Tianshui city’s Civil Air Defense Office.

   • [2016, Bill Porter, “Tienshui”, in The Silk Road: Taking the Bus to Pakistan‎^[5], Counterpoint, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 33:

     We were still recovering from our Sian getaway, and I was still feeling a bit feverish. So sleep was good. Three hours later, we got off in Tienshui. We were in Kansu province now.]

   • 2020 May 11, Anna Sherman, “A Poetic Journey Through Western China”, in The New York Times‎^[6], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2020-05-11‎^[7]:

     I arrived in Tianshui an hour before sunset. Here was a city of flyover walkways and half-built skyscrapers that ran mile after bleak mile along the dirty waters of the Jie River. Tianshui was once surrounded by high gateways and spectacular city walls, whose lines followed the river. Modern Tianshui has lost those walls: Only the very oldest residents remember they once existed.

Translations

a city of China

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 天水 (zh) (Tiānshuǐ)