Wei River in the context of "Weinan"

The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of 5,464 km (3,395 mi) and a drainage basin of 795,000 km (307,000 sq mi). Beginning in the Bayan Har Mountains, the river flows generally eastwards before entering the 1,500 km (930 mi) long Ordos Loop, which runs northeast at Gansu through the Ordos Plateau and turns east in Inner Mongolia. The river then turns sharply southwards to form the border between Shanxi and Shaanxi, turns eastwards at its confluence with the Wei River, and flows across the North China Plain before emptying into the Bohai Sea. The river is named for the yellow color of its water, which comes from the large amount of sediment discharged into the water as the river flows through the Loess Plateau.

The Yellow River basin was the birthplace of ancient Chinese civilization. According to traditional Chinese historiography, the Xia dynasty originated on its banks around 2100 BC; Sima Qian's Shiji (c. 91 BC) record that the Xia were founded after the tribes around the Yellow River united to combat the frequent floods in the area. The river has provided fertile soil for agriculture, but since then has flooded and changed course frequently, with one estimate counting 1,593 floods in the 2,540 years between 595 BC and 1946 AD. As such, the Yellow River has been considered a blessing and a curse throughout history, and has been nicknamed both "China's Pride" and "China's Sorrow".

The Zhou dynasty (/dʒoʊ/ JOH; Chinese: 周; pinyin: Zhōu, pronunciation: [ʈʂóʊ]) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from c. 1046 BC until 256 BC, the longest span of any dynasty in Chinese history. During the Western Zhou period (c. 1046 – 771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji, had military control over territories centered on the Wei River valley and North China Plain. Even as Zhou suzerainty became increasingly ceremonial over the following Eastern Zhou period (771–256 BC), the political system created by the Zhou royal house survived in some form for several additional centuries. A date of 1046 BC for the Zhou's establishment is supported by the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project and David Pankenier, but David Nivison and Edward L. Shaughnessy date the establishment to 1045 BC.

The latter Eastern Zhou period is itself roughly subdivided into two parts. During the Spring and Autumn period (c. 771 – c. 481 BC), power became increasingly decentralized as the authority of the royal house diminished. The Warring States period (c. 475 – 221 BC) that followed saw large-scale warfare and consolidation among what had formerly been Zhou client states, until the Zhou were formally extinguished by the state of Qin in 256 BC. The Qin ultimately founded the imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC after conquering all of China.

Shaanxi is a province in north Northwestern China bordering the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqing, and Sichuan to the south; and Gansu and Ningxia to the west. Shaanxi covers an area of over 205,000 km (79,000 sq mi) with about 37 million people, the 16th-largest in China. Xi'an, which includes the sites of the former capitals Fenghao and Chang'an – is the provincial capital and largest city in Northwest China and also one of the oldest cities in China. It is also the oldest of the Four Ancient Capitals, being the capital for the Western Zhou, Western Han, Jin, Sui and Tang dynasties. Xianyang, which served as the capital of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), is just north across the Wei River. The other prefecture-level cities into which the province is divided are Ankang, Baoji, Hanzhong, Shangluo, Tongchuan, Weinan, Yan'an and Yulin.

The province is geographically divided into three parts, namely Northern (or "Shaanbei"), Central ("Shaanzhong") and Southern Shaanxi (or "Shaannan"). Northern Shaanxi makes up the southeastern portion of the Ordos Basin and mainly comprises the two prefectural cities of Yulin and Yan'an on the northern Loess Plateau, demarcated from the Ordos Desert and the grasslands of Inner Mongolia's Ordos City by the Ming Great Wall. Central Shaanxi is also known as the Guanzhong region, and comprises the drainage basin of lower Wei River east of Mount Liupan and north of the Qinling Mountains, where the majority of Shaanxi's population reside. Southern Shaanxi comprises the three prefectural cities in the edge of the historical Bashu region south of the Qinling Mountains and includes the three mountainous cities of Hanzhong, Ankang and Shangluo.

The Longshan culture, also sometimes referred to as the Black Pottery Culture, was a late Neolithic culture in the middle and lower Yellow River valley areas of northern China from about 3000 to 1900 BC. The first archaeological find of this culture took place at the Chengziya Archaeological Site in 1928, with the first excavations in 1930 and 1931. The culture is named after the nearby modern town of Longshan (lit. "Dragon Mountain") in Zhangqiu, Shandong. The culture was noted for its highly polished black pottery (or egg-shell pottery).

The population expanded dramatically during the 3rd millennium BC, with many settlements having rammed earth walls. In addition to the Shandong area, variants developed in the middle Yellow River area, Taosi in the Fen River valley, and in the Wei River valley. Around 2000 BC, the population decreased sharply and large settlements were abandoned in most areas except the central area, which evolved into the Bronze Age Erlitou culture.

The Western Zhou (Chinese: 西周; pinyin: Xīzhōu; c. 1046 – 771 BC) was a period of Chinese history corresponding roughly to the first half of the Zhou dynasty. It began when King Wu of Zhou overthrew the Shang dynasty at the Battle of Muye and ended in 771 BC when Quanrong pastoralists sacked the Zhou capital at Haojing and killed King You of Zhou. The "Western" label for the period refers to the location of the Zhou royal capitals, which were clustered in the Wei River valley near present-day Xi'an.

The early Zhou state was ascendant for about 75 years; thereafter, it gradually lost power. The former lands of the Shang were divided into hereditary fiefs that became increasingly independent of the Zhou king over time. The Zhou court was driven out of the Wei River valley in 771 BC: this marked the beginning of the Eastern Zhou period, wherein political power was wielded in actuality by the king's nominal vassals.

Guanzhong (Chinese: 关中, formerly romanised as Kwanchung) region, also known as the Guanzhong Basin, Wei River Basin, or uncommonly as the Shaanzhong region, is a historical region of China corresponding to the crescentic graben basin within present-day central Shaanxi, bounded between the Qinling Mountains in the south (known as Guanzhong's "South Mountains"), and the Huanglong Mountain, Meridian Ridge and Long Mountain ranges in the north (collectively known as its "North Mountains"). The central flatland area of the basin, known as the Guanzhong Plain (关中平原; pinyin: Guānzhōng Píngyuán), is made up of alluvial plains along the lower Wei River and its numerous tributaries and thus also called the Wei River Plain. The region is part of the Jin-Shaan Basin Belt, a prominent section of the Shanxi Rift System, and is separated from its geological sibling — the Yuncheng Basin to its northeast — by the Yellow River section southwest of the Lüliang Mountains and north of the river's bend at the tri-provincial junction among Shaanxi, Shanxi and Henan.

The name Guanzhong means "within the passes", referring to the four major mountain pass fortresses historically defending the region. The region was the traditional heartland of Qin state during Zhou dynasty and thus often nicknamed the "800 li of Qin land". The Yellow River, Lüliang Mountains and the eastern end of the Qinling separate the region from the (then) politically orthodox Central Plain, which is located east of the strategic Hangu Pass and therefore was historically referred as the Guandong ("east of the pass") region by the Qin people, who later conquered the eastern states and unified China as a centralized empire — the Qin dynasty — for the first time during the 3rd century BC. Afterwards, subsequent prominent dynasties such as the Han and Tang (both considered China's historical golden ages) also had the crownland established in the Guanzhong region.

The Lüliang Mountains are a mountain range in central China, dividing Shanxi's Fen River valley from the Yellow River. The range forces the Yellow River southwards on the eastern side of the Ordos Loop but tapers off to the south, where the Fen turns west to join the Yellow River before the Qin Mountains turn the combined river sharply eastward at its confluence with the Wei at Tongguan in Shaanxi.