China Business

Business Information from across China
Helping your Business with China

China Business » Places in China » Xinjiang Uighur Province

Places in China: Xinjiang Uighur Province

The area which is now part of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region was first inhabited around 300 BC by people of Turkish descent. Thus, one of the languages used in the province reveals Turkish linguistic features. They also speak Chinese in Xinjiang.

This is the largest of China's provinces with 1,660,400 square kilometres of land area and a population of 16,630,000. The population density is rather low at 11.8 persons per square kilometre.

The largest ethnic group in Xinjiang is Uyghur with forty-five percent of the people from that group. Han Chinese make up forty-one percent of the population of the province. 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.

XinjiangUighur Autonomous Region shares borders with Tibet, Russia, India, Afghanistan and Kashmir. The province is in the far northwest corner of China and borders India, Pakistan, Tibet, Russia, Afghanistan and Kashmir. The large province makes up around one-sixth of the landmass in China.

There are several natural features which make this province somewhat unusual. The hot Taklamakan Desert, the very high Heavenly Mountains and the deep Turpan basins are all found in Xinjiang. It is a province with extreme limits in temperature, from very hot to very cold. In addition, the precipitation is quite low with around 150 mm of rain annually.

To appease the people of the province, who had tried a number of times to declare their independence, China changed the name of the province from Xinjiang Province to Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

Although farming is not usually successful in the province, there are some areas with very good fruits. The 48,010,000 hectares of grassland enable some degree of success in producing wheat, silk, cotton and sheep.

The province has significant deposits of coal and oil. The mineral deposits in Xinjiang total eighty percent of China's total. There have been over one hundred twenty types of minerals already found in Xinjiang.

Tourism is one of the economical assets of the province. Having been a part of the old Silk Road, there are relics to be found around the cities of Kashgar and Turpan. Turpan also emphasizes its grape vineyards and wine production to allure more visitors, both foreign and Chinese.

The Heavenly Mountains also attract tourists as does the fact that the city of Turpan, often called 'the oven', is eighty metres below sea level.