Gyêgu (Jié gǔ zhèn 结古镇) is the modern town which developed from the old Tibetan trade mart called Jyekundo (also known as skye dgu mdo, skye rgu mdo) in Tibetan. It is the heart of both Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (yù shù zàng zú zì zhōu 玉树藏族自治州) and Yushu County (yù shùxiàn 玉树县). The present name Gyêgu is derived from Jyekundo. The town is most commonly called by the name of the prefecture or county, Yushu, of which it is the administrative seat.

 
The Mogao Caves or Mogao Grottoes (mò gāo kū 莫高窟), also known as the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas (qiān fó dòng 千佛洞), form a system of 492 temples 25 km southeast of the center of Dunhuang, an oasis strategically located at a religious and cultural crossroads on the Silk Road, in Gansu province, China. The caves may also be known as the Dunhuang Caves, however, this term also include other Buddhist cave sites in the Dunhuang area, such as the Western Thousand Buddha Caves, and the Yulin Caves (yú lín kū 榆林窟) farther away.

Jiuquan (jiǔ quán 酒泉) is a "prefecture-level city" in the westernmost part of the Gansu province (gān sù shěn 甘肃省) in China. Jiuquan neighbors Zhangye (zhāng yè 张掖) in the east within the province. It is also bordered by Qinghai Province (qīng hǎi shěng 青海省) in the south, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (xīn jiāng wéi wú ěr zì zhì qū 新疆维吾尔自治区) in the west and Inner Mongolia (nèi méng gǔ 内蒙古) and Mongolia (méng gǔ 蒙古) in the north. In addition, Jiuquan city is the closest major city to the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.

Golmud (gé ěr mù 格尔木), sometimes transliterated as Ge'ermu or Geermu, is a county-level city in Qinghai Province, Western China. Administrated by Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, it is the second largest city in Qinghai and the third largest in the Tibetan Plateau. The population is now about 205,700. The name of the city derives from Mongolian, and its literal meaning in the local Western Mongolian is "Rivers".