Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County (; Xiao'erjing: ) is the easternmost

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

Qinghai Province Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest pop ...

, China. It is under the administration of Haidong (lit. Eastern Qinghai) Region. "Hui" refers to the Chinese Muslims, whereas "Tu" refers to the ethnic group known as “ Monguor” in the West and as "

Tu Zu The Monguor (; Tu: Mongghul), the Tu people (), the White Mongol or the Tsagaan Mongol, are Mongolic people and one of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups in China. The "Tu" ethnic category was created in the 1950s. According to the 2 ...

" in China. It borders the Honggu District of

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibe ...

on the east, demarcated by the Datong River, a tributary to the Huangshui River, which eventually flows into the

Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Ha ...

. The County is multi-ethnic and significant to not only holding the most densely populated

settlement in Sanchuan/ Guanting in its southeastern portion, but also as the homeland of the legendary Emperor Yü the Great, who established the

Xia Dynasty The Xia dynasty () is the first dynasty in traditional Chinese historiography. According to tradition, the Xia dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great, after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors, gave the throne to him. In tradit ...

(2070–1600 BC), the first ever recorded dynasty in the ancient Chinese history based on recent archaeological discoveries.

Administrative divisions

Minhe is divided into 8

towns A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an or ...

and 14 townships, including 1

ethnic township The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

. The county government is seated in Chuankou. The county's 8 towns are Chuankou,

Gushan Gushan may refer to: *Gushan Environmental Energy (古杉集团), mainland Chinese biodiesel producer * Gushan, Khash (گوشان), a village in Iran Places in Greater China *Gushan District (鼓山區), Kaohsiung, Taiwan * Mount Gu (Jingjiang) ( ...

, , Guanting, Bazhou, Manping, , and . The county's 14 townships are , , , , , , , , , Gangou Township, , Xing'er Tibetan Ethnic Township, , and .

Demographics

In 2019 the county had a registered population of 438,100 people. The county's urban population was 117,200 people, whereas the remaining 320,900 people lived in rural areas. The county recorded a

birth rate The birth rate for a given period is the total number of live human births per 1,000 population divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registration system for births; populati ...

of 10.90 per thousand, and a

death rate Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of d ...

of 4.44 per thousand, giving the county a

rate of natural increase In Demography, the rate of natural increase (RNI), also known as natural population change, is defined as the birth rate minus the death rate of a particular population, over a particular time period. It is typically expressed either as a number ...

of 6.46 per thousand.

Ethnic groups

As of 2019, 38.28% of the county's population was ethnically

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 v ...

. A 2004 report by the

National Ethnic Affairs Commission The National Ethnic Affairs Commission is a cabinet-level executive department of the State Council of the People's Republic of China under the formal leadership of the United Front Work Department that is responsible for relations between ...

reported that 44.51% of the county's population was ethnically Han Chinese, 40.45% was ethnically Hui, 11.26% was ethnically Monguor, and 3.55% was ethnically

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...

Languages

The county has large populations of Hui, Tibetan, and Tu people, whose languages are commonly spoken in varying parts of the county. In addition to Standard Mandarin, there is also a unique

Gangou dialect Gangou ( zh, s=甘沟话, p=Gāngōuhuà) is a variety of Mandarin Chinese that has been strongly influenced by Monguor (Mongol) and Amdo (Tibetan). It is representative of Chinese varieties spoken in rural Qinghai that have been influenced by ...

, a unique Guanting dialect, and a unique dialect in the Jingning Village of .

Climate

Economy

Minhe's GDP stood at 10.349 billion Yuan in 2019, of which, 1.329 billion Yuan came from the county's

primary sector The primary sector of the economy includes any industry involved in the extraction and production of raw materials, such as farming, logging, fishing, forestry and mining. The primary sector tends to make up a larger portion of the economy ...

, 4.249 billion Yuan came from the county's

secondary sector In macroeconomics, the secondary sector of the economy is an economic sector in the three-sector theory that describes the role of manufacturing. It encompasses industries that produce a finished, usable product or are involved in construc ...

, and 4.771 billion Yuan came from the county's tertiary sector. The county's GDP per capita stood at 27,745 Yuan as of 2019. The county's per capita disposable income was 18,487 Yuan in 2019, which stood at 31,432 Yuan for urban residents, and 11,706 Yuan for rural residents. Minhe's unemployment rate stood at 3.22% at the end of 2019. Retail sales in the county totaled 2.820 billion Yuan in 2019, of which, urban sales accounted for 1.448 billion, and rural sales accounted for 1.372 billion.

Agriculture

In 2019, 623,600 mu of land was sown, of which, 235,500 mu was sown for

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...

, 119,600 mu was sown for

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Uni ...

es, 103,700 mu was sown for

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

, 69,100 mu was sown for seed oils, and 46,000 mu was sown for vegetables and mushrooms. Animal husbandry is also common in Minhe, and the county's farmers have sizable populations of cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry.

Industry

The county's largest industries are the production of

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel (aggregate) together. Cement mixe ...

ferroalloy Ferroalloy refers to various alloys of iron with a high proportion of one or more other elements such as manganese (Mn), aluminium (Al), or silicon (Si). They are used in the production of steels and alloys. The alloys impart distinctive qualitie ...

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...

, and

graphite Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on la ...

Education

As of 2019, the county had 10,962

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

students, 33,609

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

students, 15,539

junior high A middle school (also known as intermediate school, junior high school, junior secondary school, or lower secondary school) is an educational stage which exists in some countries, providing education between primary school and secondary school. ...

students, 9,953 standard

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

students, and 5,446 vocational secondary school students.

Culture

A number of cultural traditions unique to particular regions in Minhe County have been recorded, and are generally attributed to the large amount of inter-ethnic contact in the region. The region has a number of traditions unique to giving birth to a child, including unique midwifing practices, a "step on birth" () tradition where families invite a guest to visit their newborn in the hopes of the baby inheriting the guest's positive personality traits, a celebration for a newborn's 30th day known as a "baimanyue" (), and consulting books which host clan-specific baby names in order to name newborns. Ethnic Monguor and

weddings in the area are remarkable in that they involve more singing than their

counterparts.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Minhe Hui And Tu Autonomous County County-level divisions of Qinghai Haidong Hui autonomous counties Monguor autonomous counties