Tacheng Prefecture, also known as Tarbagatay Prefecture, is located in northern Xinjiang, People's Republic of China. It has an area of 98,824 km (38,156 sq mi) and a population of 992,444 (2020). It is a part of Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. The prefecture level city of Karamay forms a separate enclave in the middle of Tacheng.
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👉 Tacheng Prefecture in the context of Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture
Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture in northern Xinjiang, China. Its capital is Yining, also known as Ghulja or Kulja. Covering an area of 268,591 square kilometres (16.18 per cent of Xinjiang), Ili Prefecture shares a 2,019-kilometer (1,255 mi)-long border with Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia. There are nine ports of entry in Ili Prefecture at the national level, notably Khorgas. Directly administered regions (直辖区域) within the prefecture cover 56,622 square kilometres (21.08 per cent of Ili's total area) and have a population of 4,930,600 (63.95 per cent of Ili's registered population). Kazakhs are the second largest ethnicity in the prefecture after the Han Chinese, and make up a little over a quarter of the population.
Ili is the only prefecture-level division that has other prefecture-level divisions (Altay and Tacheng Prefectures) under its administration. The term "sub-provincial autonomous prefecture" (副省级自治州) has often been applied to Ili, but the term has no legal basis under Chinese law and is a misnomer.
In this Dossier
Tacheng Prefecture in the context of Sub-provincial city
Strictly speaking, China's legal system neither recognizes the concept of "sub-provincial administrative divisions" (Chinese: 副省级行政区; pinyin: Fùshěngjí xíngzhèngqū) or "sub-provincial cities" (Chinese: 副省级城市; pinyin: Fùshěngjí chéngshì) nor provides specific legislation for such designations, and these categories are absent from official statistical classifications. The so-called sub-provincial divisions or sub-provincial cities refer to special administrative status granted to selected prefecture-level cities during specific historical periods. This status is operationally defined by appointing deputy provincial-level (deputy ministerial-level) officials as the top leaders of municipal party and government organs. Correspondingly, institutional heads under these jurisdictions hold ranks half a grade higher than their counterparts in regular prefecture-level administrative divisions – specifically, party and government department leaders are designated as deputy departmental-level officials.
China has 15 sub-provincial cities, including Dalian, Qingdao, Ningbo, Xiamen and Shenzhen and 5 separately planned cities (Chinese: 计划单列市). Additionally, the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang holds sub-provincial status as an autonomous prefecture, governing three administrative prefectures: the directly-administered counties and cities under Ili Prefecture, this refers specifically to the core jurisdictional area of Ili Profecture in its narrow administrative sense and also the administrative division-based statistical scope of the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, and Tacheng (Tarbagatay) Prefecture and Altay Prefecture.
Tacheng Prefecture in the context of Emin Valley steppe
The Emin Valley (Chinese: 额敏谷地; pinyin: Émǐn gǔdì) is located on the China–Kazakhstan border, in Central Asia. It has an area of about 65,000 square kilometres (25,000 sq mi). Its main waterway is the Emil River.
Administratively, the Emin Valley occupies areas of Tacheng Prefecture in the Xinjiang Region of north-western China and East Kazakhstan Province of eastern Kazakhstan.