LOCATION AND AREA

HISTORY

The prefecture has a long history. As early as the New Stone Age people lived here hunting and leading a nomadic life. During the Han Dynasty, an office of Wuji subordinate officer was established in the area, towns sprung up and farming began. During the Tang Dynasty, the Beiting Grand Military Viceroy’s Office was set up here with the area north of the Tianshan Mountains and east and south of Balchas Lake under its jurisdiction, and it was the political, military, economic and cultural center of the Western Region. During the Yuan Dynasty, the Executive Chancery of Bieshibali was established to administer the area north of the Tianshan Mountains. The Qing Dynasty, after putting down the Jungar Rebellion, set up Changji,, Fuyan, Suilai, Qitai and Jinghua counties here, under the jurisdiction of Zhendi Prefecture. It was during this period that a great number of immigrants from Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai came here to do large-scale land reclamation, benefiting the development of agriculture, handicraft industry and commerce in the area tremendously. Under the Republic of China, two more counties (Qiande and Muleihe) were set up and added to the area and all the counties were under the jurisdiction if Dihua Prefectural Commissioner’s Office. On July 15, 1954, the Changji Hui Autonomous Region was founded, with Urumqi, Changji and Miquan counties under its jurisdiction. In 1955, it was changed to an autonomous prefecture. In May 1958, the counties of Manas, Hutubi, Fukang, Jimsar and Qitai and and the Mulei Kazak Autonomous County were incorporated into the Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture.

POPULATION AND NATIONALITIES

The Autonomous Prefecture has twenty-nine nationalities such as the Han, Hui, Kazak and Uygur and a population of 1.2 million: Hui 11.15 percent, Han 75.84 percent, Kazak 8.3 percent, Uygur 3.94 percent, and other nationalities 0.74 percent.

Changji City has 29 nationalities and a population of 200,000, with the Han nationality making up 76.2 percent, the Hui 14.4 percent, the Kazak 5.7 percent, the Uygur 3.1 percent, and other nationalities 0.6 percent.

ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS

The Changji Prefecture has under its jurisdiction the city of Changji; Manas, Hutubi, Miquan, Fukang, Jimsar and Qitai counties; as well as Mulei Kazak Autonomous County. The city of Changji is the seat of the Autonomous Prefecture.

The Changji City has under its jurisdiction five neighborhood committees (south Yan’an Road, North Yan’an Road, Old City, Suburbs and Liuhuanggou), eight townships (Liugong, Binhu, Dianba, Daxiqu, Erliugong, Yushugou, Sangong and the Ashli Kazak Nationality Township), one state livestock farm and one horticultural farm.

CLIMATE AND NATURAL RESOURCES

The topography of Changji Prefecture is high in the south and low in the north, since the Tianshan Mountains lie on the southern edge of the prefecture, and it has an average elevation of 2,500 meters. Known as “The First Peak of the East Tianshan Mountains,” Mount Bogda towers over the prefecture at an elevation of 5,445 meters. The expanse of the hilly land is excellent for animal husbandry. Lying in the northern part of the prefecture is the Junggar Basin, which is a vast expanse of desert. Between the hilly land and the desert is a vast alluvial plain which is quite good for agriculture.

The prefecture has fifty-seven rivers with an annual runoff of 2.55 billion cubic meters, all rising in slope north of the watershed of the Tianshan Mo utains and running from south to north. The annual runoff of the Manas River, the Taxi River and some ten or so others is about one hundred million each. The prefecture has a rich underground water deposit which plays an important role in the agricultural irrigation of the area.

The prefecture has rich natural resources of more than forty minerals including iron, zinc, phosphorus, copper, gold, lake salt, Glauber’s salt, rock crystal, limestone, oil shale, natural asphalt, coal, oil, graphite, salammoniac, malachite, quartz and pumice stone. There is a great variety of wildlife, including the state-protected Asiatic wild ass, snow leopard, bear, red deer, takin, wild camel and river deer as well as the golden eagle, snow osprey, snow cock, wild goose, wild duck, eagle and the Siberian crane. The forest resources include spruce, larch, pine, birch, elm, poplar, willow, apricot and narrow leaved oleaster. There are more than one hundred Chinese traditional medicinal herbs including bear gall bladder, pritillary bulb, pilose antler, snow lily, asafoetida and leopard bones, and the fritillary bulb is of the highest quality. There are more than 370 kinds of herbs, and the red clover, alfalfa and cogongrass are the best.

ECONOMY

The Changji Prefecture combines large-scale agriculture with animal lusbandry, and has more than 266,667 hectares of arable land. Wheat, corn and rice are the main crops, but cash crops grown in the area include cotton, oil-bearing crops, beans and peas, sugar beet, hops, rugosa rose, melon, fruit and vegetables. More than two thousand hectares of the prefecture is wooled, with a cut of 20,000 cubic meters. The prefecture has 1,533 hectares of aquatics cultivation area with a fresh-fish output of 1.5 million kilograms. The amount of livestock is more than two million, including one million Xinjiang finewool sheep and improved-breed sheep which rank first in the area. Changji is one of the four sheep which rank first in the area. Changji is one of the four sheep cross-breeding centers in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

The prefecture has more than five hundred industrial and mining enterprises manufacturing over one hundred products. The newly setup Qitai Sugar Refinery and the Prefecture Cotton Mill have officially gone into operation. The main export products include sulfide soda, carpet, hops, watermelon, muskmelon, white-skinned garlic, dry hot pepper and fur, over twenty products in total.

SCIENCE, EDUCATION, CULTURE AND PUBLIC HEALTH

The prefecture has one teacher-training college, one normal college, one university for adults, seven specialized secondary schools and 706 primary and ordinary secondary schools.

The prefecture has 209 medical organizations, of which nine are hospitals of the county level or above, ten are sanitation and antiepidemic stations and nine are health centers for women and children.

SCENIC SPOTS AND PLACES OF INTEREST

Known as Yaochi (Jade Lake) in ancient times, Lake Tianchi is one of the main tourist attractions in China. Hemmed in by a group of mountains west of Mount Bogda, Lake Tianchi is geologically a moraine lake 3,400 meters long, 1,500 meters wide, 105 meters at the deepest point and lies 1,980 meters above sea level. This giant bowl of sapphire water is surrounded by mountains with majestic snow-crowned peaks reflecting on the lake, making the beauties of the lake and mountains an integral whole. Mountainsides are covered by green and luxuriant pines and cypresses extending as far as the eye can see. The open spaces between trees are embellished by rainbows of flowers, dotted with white yurts, and roamed by flocks of sheep that look like clouds floating past. This picturesque scene on a day after a rain is especially enchanting. In summer, the lake sees an endless stream of visitors from around China and abroad.

The ruins, ten kilometers north of the county seat of Jimsar, are those of the Han Dynasty city of Jinman, where the court of the North Cheshi State was established. In 74 A.D, the seventeenth year of Emperor Yongping’s reign in the Han Dynasty, Genggong, the subordinate officer stationed his men to reclaim the land here. In 640 A.D, the fourteenth year of the reign of the tang Dynasty Emperor Zhenguan, the prefecture of Tingzhou was set up with its seat here. In 702 A.D, the second year of the Tang Emperor Chang’an, the Beiting Military Viceroy’s Office was set up here, but it was burned down in wars. Only debris and broken walls remain, leaving visible traces of the city’s size and shape. The ancient city is divided into an outer and an inner cities. The outer city, rectangular in shape, is 4,596 meters in circumference with watchtowers on its wall and a city moat around it. There are also ruins of defense structures outside the southern wall, and the ruins of the sheep pen city in the northern part of the outer city.

The ruins of Xida Temple these ruins, 500 meters west of ancient Beiting City, are those of the first massive Huigu temple found so far in northern Xinjiang. The temple is seventy meters from north to south and forty meters from east to west, and has a main hall with two side halls ,one on the east and one the west. The main hall contains caves located on two of the floors, fifteen in all. The caves have arched ceilings with a statue of Buddha in each of them. In the east side hall stands an incomplete statue of the Sleeping Buddha thirteen meters long. The murals on the hall’s and ceilings are nearly gone, but the remainders are still bright and colorful. The painting techniques and the lifelike portraits reflect the flourishing of Buddhism and the well-developed culture of that time.

Also known as the “City of Devils,” the wind city is located in the mountainous area of Karamali over forty kilometers norhtwest of the Jiangjun Desert to the north of the Qitai County seat. It covers an area of nearly a hundred square kilometers, seven times that of the first “Devil City” found in the western part of Junggar. After a long period of wind erosion, the wind city has become peculiar scene of castles, halls, pavilions, towers, tigers, lions, camels and mushrooms which are uncannily true to life. And sometimes unreal images of misty lakes, forests and cars appear. When it blows hard, the cries from the city are sad and shrill, and the wailing wind heavy with yellow dust and sand; this “City of Devils” really makes people’s hair stand on end.

Lying in the Tianshan Mountains southwest of Changji City, this long, deep valley is guarded by green, steep mountains with numerous crystal springs gushing from rock crevices forming a murmuring stream. The valley is covered in evergreen virgin forest interspersed with grassland and dotted with white yurts. This is often the scene of Kazak get-togethers, when activities such as horse racing, lamb snatching and “The Girl Chase” take place. In summer, the air is fresh and the environment beautiful and it is indeed an ideal summer resort.

Also called “Bogduo Mountain” and situated in the Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Mount Bogda is 5,445 meters above sea level and one of the highest peaks in the Tianshan Mountains. Covered with snow year-round, Mount Bogda also has the nickname “the Sea of Snow.” Along with three smaller peaks, it magnificently penetrates into the sky, and Lake Tianchi nestles into Bogda1, 900 meters up its northwest slope.

Nestled in the mountains fifty kilometers south of the Qitai County seat, and occupying a commanding post on clifftops to its east, west and south, the anicent city of Shichengzi is strategically located on the ancient route from Qitai to the Turpan Depression. In the city some roof tiles with cloud designs, and plate tiles and tube tiles of the Han Dynasty style have been found, which show that the ruins are those of a city of the Han Dynasty.