Xi'an is the capital of the Shaanxi province in the People's Republic of China and a sub-provincial city.

As one of the oldest cities in Chinese history, Xi'an is one of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China because it has been the capital (under various names) of some of the most important dynasties in Chinese history, including the Zhou, Qin, Han, the Sui, and Tang dynasties.

Xi'an is the eastern terminus fo the Silk Road and known as the site of the Terracotta Army, made during the Qin Dynasty. The city has more than 3,100 years of history, and was known as Chang'an before the Ming Dynasty.

Since the 1990s, as part of the economic revival of interior China, especially for the central and northwest regions, the city of Xi'an has re-emerged as an important cultural, industrial, and educational center of the central-northwest regions, with facilities for research and development, national security, and China's space exploration program.

Shaanxi Normal University (SNU) is one of the key institutions of higher learning directly affiliated to Ministry of Education and it entered “211 Project University” in 2006. It is an important base of fostering teachers of higher education, middle school education and educational administrative cadres. It is regarded as “the cradle of teachers” in Northwest China.  The predecessor of Shaanxi Normal University is Shaanxi Provincial Teachers School which was founded in 1944. It was renamed as Xi’an Teachers College in 1954. In 1960 Xi’an Teachers College emerged with Shaanxi Teachers College into Shaanxi Normal University. In 1978, it became one of the key institutions of higher learning directly affiliated to Ministry of Education.

Aside from teaching teachers, this university is involved with researching the effects of environmental changes to traditional Chinese medicinal plants.  Research includes: finding/documenting new species; creating seed banks; isolating active ingredients.  An on-site display room showing hundreds of plants used in Traditional Chinese Medicine was an amazing example of the effort being put forth to save these Chinese natural resources.