Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau and the Loess Plateau, bordering Mongolia (Govi-Altai Province) to the northwest, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia to the north, Shaanxi to the east, Sichuan to the south, and Xinjiang to the west. The Yellow River passes through the southern part of the province. The province contains the geographical centre of China, marked by the Center of the Country Monument at . Part of the Gobi Desert is located in Gansu, as well as small parts of the Badain Jaran Desert and the Tengger Desert. The Yellow River gets most of its water from Gansu, flowing straight
The Desert Music and Other Poems used in The Desert Music, a composition for chorus and orchestra or voices and ensemble by Minimalist composer Steve Reich in 1984. The Desert Music and Other Poems The Desert Music and Other Poems was a 1954 Random House book collecting 1949-54 poems by the American modernist poet/writer William Carlos Williams. It is now collected, along with "Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems" (1962) and "Journey to Love" (1955), in the New Directions paperback "Pictures from Brueghel and other poems by William Carlos Williams: Collected Poems 1950-1962". Except for the title poem, all the pieces here are in triadic stanza