Baoji, city, western Shaanxi sheng (province), north-central China. Situated on the north bank of the Wei River, it has been a strategic and transportation centre since early times, controlling the northern end of a pass across the Qin (Tsinling) Mountains, the only practicable route from the Wei valley into Sichuan province and the upper valley of the Han River. It is also at the western end of the intensively cultivated Wei valley and is at the centre of a network of routes westward into Gansu province and, via Lanzhou, the Hui Autonomous Region of Ningxia.
Surrounded by mountains to the south, north, and west, it was the major western defensive outpost of the metropolitan district around Chang’an (present-day Xi’an) in early times. In 757, under the Tang dynasty (618–907), it was first given the name of Baoji, which it has retained ever since; at the same time, the county seat was moved to its present site from its former position some 8 miles (13 km) to the northeast.
Baoji’s modern importance has resulted from its improved communications. The Longhai Railway was extended from Xi’an (the provincial capital) to Baoji on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and was subsequently extended westward into Gansu province to Tianshui by 1947. Since 1949 this railway has been extended farther westward to Lanzhou, where it links with the trunk line into Central Asia and with the northern line to Baotou (Inner Mongolia) and Beijing. In 1958 a further rail link (later electrified) was completed from Baoji southwest to Chengdu in Sichuan, where it links with the various new railways of southwestern China. The country’s first electrified rail line was completed between Baoji and Chengdu in the 1970s. In 1994 the Baoji-Zhongwei rail line opened, and for the first time the city was connected directly with Ningxia to the north. The city is also a hub for highways to Xi’an, Chengdu, Lanzhou, and Yinchuan (in Ningxia). Completion of an expressway from Xi’an to the city in the 1990s has further enhanced its central position in regional transportation.
Baoji is also an important commercial centre, collecting goods from a wide area, and it is the second largest industrial city (surpassed only by Xi’an) in the province. Its products include machinery, auto parts, building materials, electronics, cotton textiles, and chemicals. Pop. (2002 est.) 496,113.