BATANG (re-named BAANFU in 1908) is an important frontier-town in the Sino-Tibetan Borderland (30°•0' N. and 99°.30' E.) It is situated in a beautiful and fertile plain at a'point on the Upper Yangtze where the great river which above Batang flows through a wide valley begins its tortuous and torrential descent through the wild mountain country of the Szechwanese ales. It is one of the chief depots on the main trade-route between Chengtu in the Red Basin and Lhasa (see under SZECHWAN). Its inhabitants are mainly Tibetans. In 1908, when an important new Chinese administrative division known as Si-K'ang was constituted out of Western Szechwan and the adjacent part of Eastern Tibet, Batang was made its capital.