Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), in the northwest of the country at the crossroads of Central Asia and East Asia. The largest province-level division of China by area and the 8th-largest country subdivision in the world, Xinjiang spans over and has about 25 million inhabitants. Xinjiang borders the countries of Afghanistan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, and Tajikistan. The rugged Karakoram, Kunlun, and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of Xinjiang's borders, as well as its western and southern regions. The Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract regions are claimed by India but administered by China. "divided between India and CHINA" Xinjiang also borders the Tibet Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai. The best-known route of the historic Silk Road ran through the territory from the east to its northwestern border.
High mountain ranges divide Xinjiang into the Dzungarian Basin (Dzungaria) in the north and the Tarim Basin in the south. Only about 9.7% of Xinjiang's land area is fit for human habitation. It is home to a number of ethnic groups, including the Han Chinese, Hui, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Mongols, Russians, Sibe, Tajiks (Pamiris), Tibetans, and Uyghurs. There are more than a dozen autonomous prefectures and counties for minorities in Xinjiang. Many older English-language reference works call the area Chinese Turkestan, Chinese Turkistan, East Turkestan or East Turkistan.
With a documented history of at least 2,500 years, a succession of people and empires have vied for control over all or parts of this territory. In the 18th century it came under the rule of the Qing dynasty, which was later replaced by the Republic of China. Since 1949 and the Chinese Civil War, it has been part of the People's Republic of China. In 1954, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) to strengthen border defense against the Soviet Union and promote the local economy by settling soldiers into the region. In 1955, Xinjiang was administratively changed from a province into an autonomous region. In recent decades, abundant oil and mineral reserves have been found in Xinjiang and it has become China's largest natural-gas-producing region. In the 2020s, Xinjiang emerged as a major domestic tourist destination within China.
From the 1990s to the 2010s, the East Turkestan independence movement, separatist conflict and the influence of radical Islam have resulted in unrest in the region with occasional terrorist attacks and clashes between separatist and government forces. These conflicts prompted the Chinese government to commit a series of ongoing human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in the region including, according to some, genocide.
Names
The general region of Xinjiang has been known by many different names, including Altishahr—the historical Uyghur name for the southern half of the region referring to "the six cities" of the Tarim Basin—Khotan, Khotay, Chinese Tartary, High Tartary, East Chagatay (it was the eastern part of the Chagatai Khanate), Moghulistan ("land of the Mongols"), Kashgaria, Little Bokhara, Serindia (due to Indian cultural influence) and, in Chinese, Xiyu (), meaning "Western Regions".
Between the 2nd century BC and 2nd century AD, the Han Empire established the Protectorate of the Western Regions or Xiyu Protectorate () in an effort to secure the profitable routes of the Silk Road. The Western Regions during the Tang era were known as Qixi (). Qi refers to the Gobi Desert and Xi refers to the west. The Tang Empire established the Protectorate General to Pacify the West or Anxi Protectorate () in 640 to control the region.
During the Qing dynasty, the northern part of Xinjiang, Dzungaria, was known as Zhunbu (, "Dzungar region") and the Southern Tarim Basin as Huijiang (, "Muslim Frontier"). Both regions merged after the Qing dynasty suppressed the Revolt of the Altishahr Khojas in 1759, becoming "Xiyu Xinjiang" (, literally "Western Regions' New Frontier"), later simplified as "Xinjiang" (; formerly romanized as "Sinkiang"). The official name was given during the reign of the Guangxu Emperor in 1878. It can be translated as "new frontier" or "new territory". In fact, the term "Xinjiang" was used in many other places conquered but never ruled by Chinese empires directly until the gradual Gaitu Guiliu administrative reform, including regions in Southern China. For instance, present-day Jinchuan County in Sichuan was then known as "Jinchuan Xinjiang", Zhaotong in Yunnan was named "Xinjiang", Qiandongnan region, Anshun and Zhenning were named "Liangyou Xinjiang", etc.
In 1955, the status of Xinjiang was changed from a province to a "Uygur Autonomous Region". The name originally proposed was simply "Xinjiang Autonomous Region" because that was the name of the imperial territory. This proposal was not well received by Uyghurs in the Communist Party, who found the name colonialist since it meant "new territory". Seypidin Azizi, the first chairman of Xinjiang, expressed his strong objection to the proposed name to Mao Zedong, arguing that "autonomy is not given to mountains and rivers. It is given to particular nationalities." Some Uyghur Communists proposed the name "Tian Shan Uyghur Autonomous Region" instead. The Han Communists in the central government denied the name Xinjiang was colonialist or that the central government could be colonialist, both because they were communists and because China was a victim of colonialism. But due to the Uyghur complaints, the administrative region was named "Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region".
Description
Xinjiang consists of two main geographically, historically, and ethnically distinct regions with different historical names, Dzungaria north of the Tianshan Mountains and the Tarim Basin south of the Tianshan Mountains. In 1884, the Qing established the province of Xinjiang. At the time of the Qing conquest in 1759, Dzungaria was inhabited by steppe-dwelling, nomadic Tibetan Buddhist Dzungar people and the Tarim Basin by sedentary, oasis-dwelling, Turkic-speaking Muslim farmers, now known as the Uyghurs, who were governed separately until 1884.
The Qing dynasty was well aware of the differences between the former Buddhist Mongol area in the north and the Turkic Muslim area in the south, and ruled them in separate administrative units at first. But Qing people began to think of both areas as part of a single region called Xinjiang. The very concept of Xinjiang as a single geographic identity was created by the Qing. During Qing rule, ordinary Xinjiang people had no sense of "regional identity"; rather, Xinjiang's distinct identity was given to the region by the Qing, since it had distinctive geography, history, and culture, while at the same time it was created by the Chinese, multicultural, settled by Han and Hui, and separated from Central Asia for over a century and a half.
In the late 19th century, some people were still proposing that two separate regions be created out of Xinjiang, the area north of the Tianshan and the area south of the Tianshan, while it was being debated whether to make Xinjiang a province.
Xinjiang is a large, sparsely populated area, spanning over 1.6 million km2 (comparable in size to Iran), about a sixth of China's territory. Xinjiang borders the Tibet Autonomous Region and India's Leh district in Ladakh to the south, Qinghai and Gansu provinces to the east, Mongolia (Bayan-Ölgii, Govi-Altai and Khovd Provinces) to the east, Russia's Altai Republic to the north, and Kazakhstan (Almaty and East Kazakhstan Regions), Kyrgyzstan (Issyk-Kul, Naryn and Osh Regions), Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, Afghanistan's Badakhshan Province, and Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan to the west.
The east–west chain of the Tian Shan separates Dzungaria in the north from the Tarim Basin in the south. Dzungaria is a dry steppe and the Tarim Basin contains the massive Taklamakan Desert, surrounded by oases. In the east is the Turpan Depression. In the west, the Tian Shan split, forming the Ili River valley.
History Early history
The earliest inhabitants of the region encompassing modern day Xinjiang were genetically of Ancient North Eurasian and Northeast Asian origin, with later geneflow from during the Bronze Age linked to the expansion of early Indo-Europeans. These population dynamics gave rise to a heterogeneous demographic makeup. Iron Age samples from Xinjiang show intensified levels of admixture between Steppe pastoralists and northeast Asians, with northern and eastern Xinjiang showing more affinities with northeast Asians, and southern Xinjiang showing more affinity with central Asians.
Between 2009 and 2015, the remains of 92 individuals in the Xiaohe Cemetery were analyzed for Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA markers. Genetic analyses of the mummies showed that the paternal lineages of the Xiaohe people were of almost all European "The first settlers had European paternal lineages, and maternal lineages of European and Siberian origin." [...] "a pattern that continued in to Xiaohe Phase II, in layers 3, 2 and 1, where the genes show greater mixing still (Li, et al. 2015). The origin of the mitochondrial lineages is more widespread, with the presence of west Eurasian, east Eurasian and Indian lineages." [...] "This may account for the marked genetic change over time in the Xiaohe population (Li 2010, Li, et al. 2010, Li et al. 2015)." The later Xiaohe people carried diverse east Eurasian maternal lineages, including a dominance of C4 and C5, generally linked to southern Siberia." origin, while the maternal lineages of the early population were diverse, featuring both East Eurasian and West Eurasian lineages, as well as a smaller number of Indian / South Asian lineages. Over time, the west Eurasian maternal lineages were gradually replaced by east Eurasian maternal lineages. Outmarriage to women from Siberian communities, led to the loss of the original diversity of mtDNA lineages observed in the earlier Xiaohe population. "In this regard, genetic data have recently been discovered from individuals interred in the Xiaohe cemetery from the Tarim Basin. Interestingly, they were shown to have both East Eurasian and West Eurasian mtDNA lineages, but only West Eurasian NRY lineages (Li et al. 2010)."
The Tarim population was therefore always notably diverse, reflecting a complex history of admixture between people of Ancient North Eurasian, South Asian and Northeast Asian descent. The Tarim mummies have been found in various locations in the Western Tarim Basin such as Loulan, the Xiaohe Tomb complex and Qäwrighul. These mummies have been previously suggested to have been Tocharian or Indo-European speakers, but recent evidence suggest that the earliest mummies belonged to a distinct population unrelated to Indo-European pastoralists and spoke an unknown language, probably a language isolate.
Although many of the Tarim mummies were classified as Caucasoid by anthropologists, Tarim Basin sites also contain both "Caucasoid" and "Mongoloid" remains, indicating contact between newly arrived western nomads and agricultural communities in the east. "... the fact that in cemeteries such as Yanbulaq both Europoid and Mongoloid mummies have been found together, also indicates some degree of interaction between existing farming populations and newly arrived nomadic migrants from the West." Mummies have been found in various locations in the Western Tarim Basin such as Loulan, the Xiaohe Tomb complex and Qäwrighul.