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China Information » Places in China » Xinjiang Uighur Province
Places in China: Xinjiang Uighur Province
This province is unique in a number of ways. For one thing, it does not have a high Han Chinese ratio in the population. The people are more European in appearance and have their own language. The Uyghur are the largest ethnic group in the province with forty-five percent of the population. Han Chinese make up forty-one percent of the people. Seven percent are Kazakh while Hui are five percent. Other groups represented in Xinjiang are Kirghiz, Mongol, Dongxiang, Xibe, Tajik, Russian, Ozbek, Tatar and Daur.
Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region shares borders with Tibet, Russia, India, Afghanistan and Kashmir. The spoken language in the province is of Turkish origin although of a different dialect than present-day Turkish.
The land area of Xinjiang is 1,660,400 square kilometres. The population of the province is 16,630,000. Thus, the population density is equal to 11.8 persons per square kilometre.
Xinjiang is in the far northwest part of China and is the largest of China's provinces. The province is about one-sixth of China's total landmass. The very hot Taklamakan Desert, the very high Heavenly Mountains and the deep Turpan basins are all found in the province. This makes for the wide range of temperatures from very hot to very cold, all within this one province. The best time to visit the province and be relatively comfortable is in the autumn of the year. The weather does not usually include much precipitation, only around 150 mm per year.
Xinjiang was once a part of the Silk Road. With this in its past, it is a good place for the study of culture. For the last thousand years, the province's main religion has been Muslim. This accounts for the many mosques found there.
The province was renamed Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region from Xinjiang Province in an effort by the Chinese government to appease the local people in 1955. The Xinjiang people had tried several times to declare independence.
The Tianshan Mountains tend to divide the province into two parts with Yining, Urumqi and Hami in the north and Turpan, Hotar and Kashgar in the south. Mountains and desert have hindered farming efforts considerably. Still, 48,010,000 hectares of grassland enable the production of fruits, cotton, wheat, silk and sheep.
Eighty percent of China's total mineral deposits are in Xinjiang and provide a goodly amount of the country's total. Coal and oil deposits within the province are also significant.
Tourism is important to the economy of Xinjiang, both domestic and foreign tourists included. The people are friendly and welcome visitors to join in their celebrations and festivals and to briefly experience the way of life of the locals. Being a bit independent in some of their ways, the people of the province operate on the Beijing time zone but also on their own system since the Beijing time zones do not seem logical to the local life styles.
The capital city of Xinjiang is Urumqi and is the most densely populated city in the province. The city serves as the transportation capital in the area with rail, air and roads. Industrial activity peaked after the discovery of oil nearby in 1955.
Another unique city in the province is Turpan, which is located eighty metres below sea level. It is sometimes referred to as the 'Oven" due to its very high summer temperatures. The cultivation of grapes and the making of wine help to bring visitors to the city.
This out-of-the-way province is one of the friendliest of China's remote areas.
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