Baiyin is located in central Gansu province on the upper reaches of the Yellow River. Baiyin means silver in Mandarin Chinese, and the city was created and named following the development of the local mining industry. Modern-day Baiyin consists of three counties, Huining, Jingyuan and Jingtai, and two districts, Baiyin and Pingchuan, and covers an area of 21,200 square kilometers.

It has a population of 1.71 million, including 700,000 people who live in its urban areas. In 2011, Baiyin’s GDP reached 37.58 billion yuan ($6.17 billion). China's non-ferrous metals industry is said to have originated in Baiyin, and its copper industry has ranked first in the country for 18 consecutive years in terms of production, output value, profits and taxes.

It produces 680,000 tons of non-ferrous metals and 13 million tons of raw coal annually, and the city’s total installed power generation capacity reaches more than 4 million kilowatts.

The local authorities are also focusing on developing industries related to the production of chemicals and building materials, as well as equipment manufacturing and processing of agricultural products.

The Yellow River flows through Baiyin for about 258 kilometers, and many large and medium-sized irrigation projects have been built, which has increased the effective irrigated area in the city to 94,700 hectares.

Baiyin is an emerging city of science and technology innovation, and boasts one national productivity improvement demonstration center, 17 enterprise technology centers and national and provincial engineering technology research centers, as well as four doctoral and postgraduate research centers.

The authorities have classified 80 research successes as technological innovations at the provincial level or above.