Bortala ( mn, Бортал, Mountain:''brown steppe'', ) is an

autonomous prefecture Autonomous prefectures () are one type of autonomous administrative divisions of China, existing at the prefectural level, with either ethnic minorities forming over 50% of the population or being the historic home of significant minorities. A ...

for Mongol people in the northern middle of

Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

Western China Western China (, or rarely ) is the west of China. In the definition of the Chinese government, Western China covers one municipality (Chongqing), six provinces (Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively r ...

. It has an area of . Bole is its capital. "Boro tala" comes from the

Mongolian language Mongolian is the official language of Mongolia and both the most widely spoken and best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residen ...

and means "brown steppe".

Geography

Bortala is located in the southwestern part of the Dzungarian Basin. It occupies a V-shaped basin between the

Dzungarian Alatau The Dzungarian Alatau ( mn, Зүүнгарын Алатау, ''Züüngaryn Alatau''; ; kk, Жетісу Алатауы, ''Jetısu Alatauy''; russian: Джунгарский Алатау, ''Dzhungarskiy Alatau'') is a mountain range that lies on t ...

in the northwest and the

Borohoro Mountains The Borohoro Mountains ( zh, s=博罗科努山, p=Bóluōkēnǔ shān, w=P'o-lo-k'o-nu shan; kk, Борохоро жотасы, ) is one of the major ranges of the Tian Shan mountain system. It is almost entirely located within in China's Xinjiang ...

in the southwest. The prefecture borders

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

to the north and west, and has an

international border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...

of . To the east it borders

Wusu UsuThe official spelling according to , (Beijing, ''SinoMaps Press'' 1997); as the official romanized name and transliterated from Mongolian, also known as Wusu, is a county-level city with more than 100,000 residents in Xinjiang, China. It i ...

City and

Toli County Toli County is a county situated in the north of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and is under the administration of the Tacheng Prefecture Tacheng Prefecture is located in Northern Xinjiang, People's Republic of China. It has an area of ...

of Tacheng Prefecture; to the south it borders

Nilka County The Nilka County is a county situated within the Xinjiang, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and is under the administration of the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. It contains an area of . According to the 2002 census, it has a population of . ...

Yining County Yining County ( zh, s=伊宁县) as the official romanized name, also transliterated from Uyghur as Gulja County ( ug, غۇلجا ناھىيىسى; zh, s=固勒扎县), is a county within the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture of the Xinjiang Uyg ...

, and Huocheng County of Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. The prefecture has two large lakes, Ebi-Nur and Sayram Lake.

Administrative divisions

Bortala is divided into two

county-level cities A county-level municipality (), county-level city or county city, formerly known as prefecture-controlled city (1949–1970: ; 1970–1983: ), is a county-level administrative division of the People's Republic of China. County-level ...

, Bole and Alashankou; and two counties: Jinghe County and Wenquan County. In addition, it is home to the Fifth Agricultural Division of the

Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (), also known as XPCC or Bingtuan ("The Corps"), is a state-owned economic and Paramilitary forces of China, paramilitary organization in China, China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). ...

and its 11 regiment-level farms / ranches.

History

The

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

created the in this area. During the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the area was the territory of the Oirats. Chahar Mongols were moved here during the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

from

Kalgan Zhangjiakou (; ; ) also known as Kalgan and by several other names, is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Hebei province in Northern China, bordering Beijing to the southeast, Inner Mongolia to the north and west, and Shanxi to the southwe ...

, while Torghuud

Oirats Oirats ( mn, Ойрад, ''Oirad'', or , Oird; xal-RU, Өөрд; zh, 瓦剌; in the past, also Eleuths) are the westernmost group of the Mongols whose ancestral home is in the Altai region of Siberia, Xinjiang and western Mongolia. Histor ...

moved eastwards from the

Volga The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the List of rivers of Europe#Rivers of Europe by length, longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Cas ...

. The

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

established the autonomous prefecture on July13, 1954.

Demographics

There are 35

nationalities Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...

in Bortala. According to the 2010 census, 65% of the 443,680 inhabitants are

Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive va ...

, while the remainder are

Mongol The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member of ...

, Uyghur, Kazakh,

Hui The Hui people ( zh, c=, p=Huízú, w=Hui2-tsu2, Xiao'erjing: , dng, Хуэйзў, ) are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the n ...

or of other nationalities. ;Population by ethnicity as of 2000 and 2010.

Economy

In 2004 the prefecture had a total

gross domestic product Gross domestic product (GDP) is a money, monetary Measurement in economics, measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjec ...

of 3.69 billion

Renminbi The renminbi (; symbol: ¥; ISO code: CNY; abbreviation: RMB) is the official currency of the People's Republic of China and one of the world's most traded currencies, ranking as the fifth most traded currency in the world as of April 2022. ...

(including the XPCC 5th division), an increase of 11.9% over the previous year. Annual total imports and exports totalled

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

554 million, an increase of 96.8% over the previous year. Average annual salary was 11000

, an increase of 7.6%; average annual pure income per capita for agricultural workers was 3904

, an increase of 10.8%.

Transport

Alashankou is a

port of entry In general, a port of entry (POE) is a place where one may lawfully enter a country. It typically has border security staff and facilities to check passports and visas and to inspect luggage to assure that contraband is not imported. Internati ...

with both

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

s and

road A road is a linear way for the conveyance of traffic that mostly has an improved surface for use by vehicles (motorized and non-motorized) and pedestrians. Unlike streets, the main function of roads is transportation. There are many types of ...

s linking China with

; it is also one of China's national first-class port of entry (). The volume of imports / exports passing through Alashankou accounts for 90% of the total for all of Xinjiang, and has been second to only Manzhouli,

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...

among land ports-of-entry in China for 8 days.

References

External links

Bortala Government websiteBortala Government website
{{authority control Prefecture-level divisions of Xinjiang Autonomous prefectures of the People's Republic of China Mongols in China 1954 establishments in China