It lies on the south bank of the Yellow River just east of its eastward bend out of the Ordos Loop at Tong Pass in Shaanxi.

It was the site of many battles during the Warring States and early imperial eras, when it was the chokepoint shielding Qin, Guanzhong, or Luoyang from outside attack.

[1] Chinese legend states that Lao-tzu wrote his Tao Te Ching at the insistence of Yinxi,[2] an astrologer and the guard at Hangu Pass, before leaving for the west.

Under the Eastern Han that succeeded Wang Mang's "Xin dynasty", its fortifications protected the capital Luoyang in the other direction, staving off attacks coming from the west and northwest.

In the manga series Kingdom by Yasuhisa Hara, the Hangu Pass was the last chokepoint that Li Mu and his Coalition Army needed to overcome in order to defeat Qin.