The best place to start a tour of Lanzhou is the main shopping district, roughly in the middle of the city, in the blocks that lie to the north and west of Zhongshan Lu (this street comes south from Zhongshan Bridge, then turns a right angle at the Shengli Hotel and continues east). There's a downtown feel to the place, with boutiques, Western music, fast food and smart department stores. Check out the Ya Ou Department Store, on the corner of Zhongshan Lu and Zhangye Lu, for the latest word on consumerism in Lanzhou. It's not all relentless modernity - you may still see the odd shuffling old man with a wispy beard, though he's likely to look a little lost.

Immediately north of here lies one of the city's great sites, the Yellow River , already flowing thick and fast although it still has some 1500km to go before it finally reaches the sea at Qingdao. The water of the river is a rich, muddy brown colour, a legacy of the huge quantities of silt it picks up, and the fast flow helps to create a wind corridor through the city, which both moderates the climate and removes some of the worst effects of the pollution. For boating on the river, try the area just west of Zhongshan Bridge (city side) - there are a few motor boats operating brief viewing trips, or you can simply hire a deckchair from which to watch the mud slide by. For a bird's-eye view, you can take a cable car (¥16 return) from here right over the river to the Baita Park (daily 7am-7pm; ¥2) on the hills of the far bank. The park contains a number of interesting old buildings, including a seventeen-metre-high white pagoda which dates back to the Ming dynasty (though according to legend a white pagoda was first erected here on the orders of Genghis Khan, to commemorate a Tibetan lama who had pleased him). It's worth the trip if the weather is good, as there are excellent views over the river and the city from the park. You can get snacks here as well.

On the city side of the river, across the road from the cable car departure point, is a small Taoist temple, the Baiyun Guan . The temple is active today, and if you pop in you can see the monks performing rites or pottering about.

In the hills that border the city lie Wuquan and Lanshan parks (daily 8am-6pm; ¥4), just south of the terminus of bus #8 (which you can pick up anywhere on Jiuquan Lu in the centre of town). Wuquan Park is full of mainly Qing pavilions, convoluted stairways twirling up the mountainside interspersed with tea houses, art-exhibition halls and ponds. One of the oldest buildings, the Jingang Palace , is Ming and contains a five-metre-high bronze Buddha cast in 1370. It's a nice place to wander with the locals at weekends. From Wuquan Park, Lanshan Park can be reached by chair lift - it's about twenty minutes to the very top.

Moving east from the central area takes you into the mainly modern part of the city, which has few attractions for tourists. One possible exception, a few hundred metres east of Jiuquan Lu (just east of Jingning Lu) on the north side of Qingyang Lu, is the Baiyi Si and an accompanying Ming-dynasty pagoda. The temple is interesting more for the poignancy of its location than anything else. With huge construction projects looming up on all sides and a busy securities exchange right next door, it looks as alien as a spaceship. Dong Fangzhong Square, nearby, is worth checking out at dusk, when the flag in the centre is lowered in a military ceremony.

The west of the city comprises an upmarket shopping and residential area strung out along Xijin Xi Lu; from the centre of town take bus #1, #6 or #31. The one sight worth visiting here, the Gansu Provincial Museum (Mon-Sat 9am-noon & 2.30-5.30pm; ¥25), occupies a spot just opposite the Youyi Hotel. One of the most interesting provincial museums in the country, its collection is divided between natural resources of Gansu (downstairs) and historical finds (upstairs). Apart from the four-metre-tall mammoth skeleton , recovered from the Yellow River basin in 1973, the natural resources exhibit is not of enormous interest, but upstairs the display is excellent, with full English explanations. There are some remarkable ceramics dating from the Neolithic age as well as a huge collection of wooden tablets and carvings from the Han dynasty - priceless sources for studying the politics, culture and economy of the period. The fabulous nine-inch-tall bronze Flying Horse of Wuwei , two thousand years old and still with its accompanying procession of horses and chariots, is the highlight, however - note the stylish chariots for top officials with round seats and sunshades. The fourteen-centimetre-tall horse, depicted with one front hoof stepping on the back of a flying swallow, was discovered in a Han-dynasty tomb in Wuwei thirty years ago.