Northwestern China (Chinese: 中国西北地区, also known as 西北 or 蒙新) is a region in the People's Republic of China. It consists of five provincial administrative regions, namely Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Xinjiang.
The region is characterized by a (semi-)arid continental climate. It has a diverse population including significant ethnic minorities such as Hui, Uyghurs and Tibetans. Culturally, the region has historically been influenced by the Silk Road.
The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic languages originated in a region of East Asia spanning from Mongolia to Northwest China, where Proto-Turkic is thought to have been spoken, and from where they expanded to Central Asia and farther west during the first millennium. They are characterized as a dialect continuum.
Turkic languages are spoken by some 200 million people. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish, spoken mainly in Anatolia and the Balkans; its native speakers account for about 38% of all Turkic speakers, followed by Uzbek.
The Uyghurs, alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central Asia and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as the titular nationality of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. They are one of China's 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities.
The Uyghurs have traditionally inhabited a series of oases scattered across the Taklamakan Desert within the Tarim Basin. These oases historically functioned as independent states or came under the control of various civilizations, including Chinese, Mongol, Tibetan, and Turkic powers. The Uyghurs gradually started to become Islamized in the 10th century, and most Uyghurs identified as Muslims by the 16th century. Islam has since played an important role in Uyghur culture and identity.
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 1.6 million square kilometres (620,000 sq mi) 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. 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.
45°00′N 85°00′E / 45.000°N 85.000°E
Dzungaria (/(d)zʊŋˈɡɛəriə/; from the Mongolian words züün gar, meaning 'left hand'), also known as Northern Xinjiang or Beijiang, is a geographical subregion in Northwest China that corresponds to the northern half of Xinjiang. Bound by the Altai Mountains to the north and the Tian Shan mountain range to the south, Dzungaria covers approximately 777,000 km (300,000 sq mi), and borders Kazakhstan to the west and Mongolia to the east. In contexts prior to the mid-18th century Dzungar genocide, the term "Dzungaria" could cover a wider area, coterminous with the Oirat-led Dzungar Khanate.
The Taklamakan Desert (/ˌtækləməˈkæn/ TAK-lə-mə-KAN) is a desert in northwest China. Located inside the Tarim Basin in Southern Xinjiang, it is bounded by the Kunlun Mountains to the south, the Pamir Mountains to the west, the Tian Shan range to the north, and the Gobi Desert to the east.
The Hui people are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the northwestern provinces and in the Zhongyuan region. According to the 2020 census, China is home to approximately 11.3 million Hui people. Outside China, the 170,000 Dungan people of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the Panthays in Myanmar, and many of the Chin Haws in Thailand are also considered part of the Hui ethnicity.
The Hui were referred to as Hanhui during the Qing dynasty to be distinguished from the Turkic Muslims, which were referred to as Chanhui. The Republic of China government also recognised the Hui as a branch of the Han Chinese rather than a separate ethnic group. In the National Assembly of the Republic of China, the Hui were referred to as Nationals in China proper with special convention. The Hui were referred to as Muslim Han people by Bai Chongxi, the Minister of National Defense of the Republic of China at the time and the founder of the Chinese Muslim Association. Some scholars refer to this group as Han Chinese Muslims, Han Muslims, Chinese Muslims or Sino-Muslims. While others call them Chinese-speaking Muslims or Sinophone Muslims.
Kalmyk Oirat (Хальмг Өөрдин келн, IPA: [xalʲmə́k ɵːrd̥íɴ kʰelə́ɴ]), also known as the Kalmyk language (Хальмг келн) and formerly anglicized as Calmuck, is a variety of the Oirat language, natively spoken by the Kalmyk people of Kalmykia, a federal subject of Russia. In Russia, it is the standard form of the Oirat Mongolian (based on the Torgut dialect), which belongs to the Mongolic language family. The Kalmyk people of the Northwest Caspian Sea of Russia claim descent from the Oirats from Eurasia, who have also historically settled in Mongolia and Northwest China. According to UNESCO, the language is "definitely endangered". According to the Russian census of 2021, there are 110,000 speakers out of an ethnic population consisting of 178,000 people.