Kashi Region
( 2005-09-13 )

The Kashi (full-nameKashgar) region is located in the southwest of Northwest China'sXinjiangUygur Autonomous Region, with one city and eleven counties under its administration. It covers an area of 96.5 square kilometers and has 17 ethnic groups, with a population of 3,365,600 (3,052,100 for ethnic minorities). The region has a warm temperate continental arid climate. Kashi City, the location of the administration agency, is more than 1,500 kilometers away from Urumqi based on highway distance.

The Kashi region, with a total borderline of 388 kilometers, borders Tajikistan on the west and Afghanistan and Pakistan on the southwest. It also lies adjacent to Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and India.

It has five rivers whose annual runoff is larger than 6 hundred million cubic meters, while the region's total volume of river-water resources amounts to 122.17 hundred million cubic meters, and total volume of underground water resources, 86.81 hundred million cubic meters.

It has a forest area of 438,500 hectares and a natural pastureland of 1,619,300 hectares. There are 16 kinds of first-class wild animals under the state's protection and 53 kinds of second-class ones. The medicinal plants are mainly licorice, Cynomorium songaricum, Cistanche salsa, safflower, and field dodder. Mineral resources, with a total number of 38 kinds, include iron, mica, asbestos,jade, diamond, coal, phosphorus, barium, titanium, and copper.

Kashi City -- a Famed City of History and Culture

Kashi is located at the west edge of the Taklimakan Desert, with a total urban area of 150,000 sqaure kilometers. The city has a population of more than 220,000, made up of ethnic groups like the Uygur, Han, Kirgiz, Tajik, Russian, and Hui, with the Uygur accounting for up to 90 percent.

This place used to be a key town along the AncientSilk Roadand the state of Shule, one of 36 states in the west region during the earlyWestern Han Dynasty(206BC-24AD). The Shule Protectorate was twice set up here during theTang Dynasty(618-907) and it became one of four famous towns in the Western Regions.

In 1884, when Xinjiang was established as a province, Shule County was set up here. In 1952, Kashi City was founded.