Oytak Town () is a

town 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 ori ...

Akto County Akto County (also known as Aqtu, Aktu, or Aketao; ) is a Counties of China, county in Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. The county borders Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and has two Towns of Chin ...

in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. Located in the middle of the northeast of the county, the town covers an area of 1,537 square kilometers with a population of 5,093 (as of 2017). It has 4

villages A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

with 16 villagers' groups under its jurisdiction, its seat is at ''Tokkuzotak'' ().

Name

The name of Oytak is from

Kyrgyz language Kyrgyz (; autonym: , tr. ''Kyrgyz tili'', ) is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia. Kyrgyz is the official language of Kyrgyzstan and a significant minority language in the Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in X ...

, meaning "sunken ravine" (), or "a lowland in mountains" () from the

old Turkic language Old Turkic (also East Old Turkic, Orkhon Turkic language, Old Uyghur) is the earliest attested form of the Turkic languages, found in Göktürk and Uyghur Khaganate inscriptions dating from about the eighth to the 13th century. It is the old ...

. It is named after the geologically famous Oytak Valley () in the land. The name of the town is also spelled Oytag.

Geography

The town of Oytak is located between 75°58′～76°03′

east longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east–west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter l ...

and 39°12′- 39°16′

north latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pol ...

, 50 kilometers southwest of the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

Akto Town Akto Town () is a town and the county seat of Akto County in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. Located in the northeast of the county, the town covers an area of 136 square kilometers with a population of 21,560 (as of 2017). It has 19 comm ...

. The

Karakoram Highway The Karakoram Highway ( ur, , translit=śāhirāh qarāquram; known by its initials KKH, also known as N-35 or National Highway 35 ( ur, ) or the China-Pakistan Friendship Highway) is a national highway which extends from Hasan Abdal in ...

runs through the town north to south, with convenient transportation. The area has a maximum length of 58 kilometers from west to east, a maximum length of 52 kilometers from north to south, and a total area of 1,537 square kilometers. Oytak is a semi-agricultural and semi-pastoral town with an area of 842.58 hectares of

arable land Arable land (from the la, arabilis, "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for the ...

, 49.21 hectares of

orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit- or nut-producing trees which are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also sometimes a feature of larg ...

and 48.92 hectares of forest land. Oytak is a temperate continental dry climate with cool weather. The annual average temperature is 7.8 °C, the average temperature in January is −8.1

°C The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The ...

, the average temperature in July is 20.8 °C, and the frost-free period is 130–200 days.

Resources

The main

water system A water supply network or water supply system is a system of engineered hydrologic and hydraulic components that provide water supply. A water supply system typically includes the following: # A drainage basin (see water purification – source ...

is the Gez River (), the water resources are richer in the town. The town's economy is dominated by animal husbandry, and farming and animal husbandry are run. The land on both sides of the Gez River Valley is more fertile and flat. The main crops are wheat and corn. There are precious animals such as snow chicken and

mongolian gazelle The Mongolian gazelle (''Procapra gutturosa''), or dzeren (russian: Дзерэн), is a medium-sized antelope native to the semiarid Central Asian steppes of Mongolia, as well as some parts of Siberia and China. The name ''dzeren'' is Russian mis ...

in the territory, and there are mineral resources such as iron, copper, gold, coal,

oil shale Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general composition of oil shales constitute ...

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywall. ...

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

and

zeolite Zeolites are microporous, crystalline aluminosilicate materials commonly used as commercial adsorbents and catalysts. They mainly consist of silicon, aluminium, oxygen, and have the general formula ･y where is either a metal ion or H+. These pos ...

. The tourism resources are well-known Auyitagh Forest Park (), with

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...

s, scenery and cool climate. File:Karakorum-oytak-glaciar-d11.jpg, Snow mountains and glaciers, close to

File:Karakorum-oytak-glaciar-d08.jpg,

s File:Karakorum-oytak-barranco-d01.jpg, mountains File:Karakorum-oytak-cascada-d01.jpg, mountains File:奥依塔克邮政所北面的景色.jpg, grassland in Oytak File:Karakorum-oytak-hotel-d01.jpg , a hotel, close to

Administrative divisions

The town has 4

under its jurisdiction. ;4 administration villages: * Atoynak () * Oytak () * Pilal () * Qalmaerik () ;

Unincorporated village An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

s * Tokkuzotak () * Oytag aygzu ()

References

{{Administrative divisions of Akto County Township-level divisions of Akto County