Yining

Town square in Yining/Ghulja, July 2005

Ghulja (Uyghur: غۇلجا, also spelled Kuldja, Kulja, Gulja), Yining in Chinese (simplified Chinese: 伊宁; traditional Chinese: 伊寧; pinyin: Yíníng; also spelled Ining), also called Ili or Yili, is a county-level city in western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of northwestern China, and the capital of the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. Yining was also known in ancient times as Almalik.

Kulja was also a name of the Ili region in the past.

Area and Population

Administratively, the City of Yining is a county-level administrative unit. As of 2004, it occupied 629 km² (243 sq mi), with the population of 430,000 people.^[1] The city is located at the elevation of about 640 metres (2,100 ft).

The land area and population of the City of Yining were smaller before 2004; the increase resulted from the transfer of two villages with some 100 km² (39 sq mi) of land from the adjacent Yining County, which is a separate administrative unit from the City of Yining.

Geography

Yining is located on the northern side of the Ili River in the Dzungarian basin, near the border with Kazakhstan, and about 710 km (440 mi) west of Ürümqi. The Ili River valley is far wetter than any other part of Xinjiang and has rich grazing land.

The City of Yining borders on Huocheng County in the west and the Yining County in the east; across the river in the south is Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County.

History

Note on historical place names

From 13-15th century it was under the control of Chagatai Khanate known as Almaligh. Another Mongolian empire—the Zunghar Khanate—established its capital in the area. In the 19th and early 20th century, the word Kuldja or Kulja was often used in Russia and in the West as the name for the entire Chinese part of the Ili River basin as well as for its two main cities. The usage of 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica is fairly characteristic: it defines Kulja as a "territory in north-west China" bounded by the Russian border and the mountains that surround the Ili basin, and it talks about two major cities of the region:

• Kulja (i.e. today's Yining), or more specifically Old Kulja (elsewhere, also called Taranchi Kulja), which was the commercial center of the region.
• Suidun (i.e. Suiding, now called Shuiding), or more specifically New Kulja, Manchu Kulja, or Ili (elsewhere, also Chinese Kulja), the Chinese fortress and the regional capital.

Suiding was located some 40 km (25 mi) to the northwest of Yining, in today's Huocheng County; the regional capital was moved there circa 1883, prior to which the apellation New Kulja or Manchu Kulja was applied to the Huiyuan Cheng fortress, which was a bit closer to Yining.

Qing Dynasty

Yining was the site of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Kulja 1851, which opened the area for trade.

In 1864-66, the city suffered severely from fighting during the Muslim Rebellion. The city and the rest of the Ili River basin was seized by the Russians in 1871 during Yakub Beg's independent rule of Kashgaria. It was restored to China under the terms of the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1881).

People's republic

Yining became the capital of an autonomous district in 1954. In 1962, major Sino-Soviet clashes^{[citation needed]} took place along the Ili River.

In 1997, it what came to be known as the Gulja Incident or massacre, the city was rocked by two days of demonstrations or riots^[2] followed by a government crack down resulting in at least 9 deaths following the execution of 30 Uighur activists^[3].

Economy

Yining is the chief city, agricultural market, and commercial centre of the Ili River valley. It is an old commercial center trading in tea and cattle, and it is still an agricultural area with extensive livestock raising. It has fruit orchards. Iron, coal and uranium are mined nearby.

Transportation

• Regular bus service is available to other cities in the region, and taxis are available locally.
• A few km North of town there is an airport, with commercial service to Ürümqi only.
• There is no rail service.
• China National Highway 218
• China National Highway 312

References

1. ^ Administrative division of Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture (Chinese)
2. ^ "Xinjiang to intensify crackdown on separatists", China Daily, 10/25/2001 [1]
3. ^ 1997 Channel 4 UK report which can be seen here

External links

• Yining City Government (Chinese)
• Map of the City of Yining (Borders shown as they were before the annexation of the villages of Dadamutu (达达木图乡 on the map) and Panjin (潘津村 on the map) in 2004) (Chinese)

Coordinates: 43°55′N 81°19′E / 43.917°N 81.317°E / 43.917; 81.317