Ruoqiang Town (; Uyghur: Чакилик: Qakilik or Charkliq) 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 ...

Ruoqiang County Ruoqiang County () as the official romanized name, also transliterated from Uyghur as Qakilik County (; ), is a county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China under the administration of the Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture. It co ...

Bayin'gholin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture Bayingolin (; often abbreviated to Bayingol; also as Bayinguoleng) is an autonomous prefecture for Mongol people in the southeast of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Western China. It borders Gansu to the east, Qinghai to the southeast and ...

in southeastern

Xinjiang 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 ...

, People's Republic of China. Ruoqiang Town is the county seat of the Ruoqiang County, and therefore is the place that less detailed maps label as "Ruoqiang County" or just "Ruoqiang". The postal code is 841 800. There is a two-laned asphalt highway to

Korla Korla,The official spelling according to also known as Kurla, United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency or from Mandarin Chinese as Ku'erle or Kuerle, is the second largest city in Xinjiang. It is a county-level city and the seat of ...

, north, and west to

Hotan Hotan (also known as Gosthana, Gaustana, Godana, Godaniya, Khotan, Hetian, Hotien) is a major oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang, an autonomous region in Western China. The city proper of Hotan broke off from the larger Hotan County to become ...

. There is no motorable road east to

Dunhuang Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major ...

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 Tibet ...

, but one can now drive southeast through the

Altun Shan Altyn-Tagh (also Altun Mountains, Altun Shan; , Pinyin: ''A'erjin Shan'', Wade–Giles: ''A-erh-chin Shan;'' Uyghur'':ئالتۇن تاغ'') is a mountain range in Northwestern China that separates the Eastern Tarim Basin from the Tibetan Plate ...

range and then north through part of the Tsaidam to Dunhuang.

Names

Lionel Giles Lionel Giles (29 December 1875 – 22 January 1958) was a British sinologist, writer, and philosopher. Lionel Giles served as assistant curator at the British Museum and Keeper of the Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books. He is ...

has recorded the following names for Ruoqiang Town (with his Wade-Giles forms of the Chinese names converted to

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

): :"''Yixun'', or Yixiu, capital of Shanshan after 77 B.C. (Note: This is an incorrect identification, the capital's name was, in fact, Yüni 扜泥.) :Shanshan Zhen ui :Nafubo (纳缚波) uanzang :Dianhe ang :Shicheng Zhen ang after A.D. 675 :Great Nob ibetan records :City of Lop arco Polo:Charkhlik odern name"

History

During the latter part of the

Former Han The Han dynasty (, ; ) was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC – 9 AD, 25–220 AD), established by Liu Bang (Emperor Gao) and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–207 BC) and a warr ...

and throughout the

Later Han Later Han (後漢) may refer to two dynastic states in imperial China: *Eastern Han (25–220), the second period of the Han dynasty, also called Later Han * Later Han (947–951), a dynasty during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period See al ...

the capital of the kingdom of

Shanshan Shanshan (; ug, پىچان, Pichan, Piqan) was a kingdom located at the north-eastern end of the Taklamakan Desert near the great, but now mostly dry, salt lake known as Lop Nur. The kingdom was originally an independent city-state, known in ...

was known as Yüni 扜泥, which was located near the present town of Ruoqiang.Hill (2015) Vol.I, pp. 93-94. Ruoqiang Town was established in 1984. In 2014, Xincheng and Loulan were established as residential communities.

Geography

Almost adjacent to the town are the Tieganlike

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 ...

, to the east, and Wutamu

Township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

, to the west. They, however, are not administratively part of Ruoqiang Town, but are separate township-level administrative units. Ruoqiang Town was used by numerous notable explorers as a launching point to the

Lop Nor Lop Nur or Lop Nor (from a Mongolian name meaning "Lop Lake", where "Lop" is a toponym of unknown origin) is a former salt lake, now largely dried up, located in the eastern fringe of the Tarim Basin, between the Taklamakan and Kumtag deserts ...

archaeological sites, which are located within to the northeast.

Climate

Ruoqiang has a

cold desert climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk''), is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

''BWk'') with extreme seasonal variation in temperature. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from in January to , and the annual mean is . Precipitation totals only annually, and mostly falls in summer. No month has less than 60% of possible sunshine, and the area receives close to 3,100 hours of bright sunshine annually.

Administrative divisions

As of 2018, the town was made up of five residential communities: Residential Communities * Shengli (), Wenhua (), Tuanjie (), Xincheng (), Loulan ()

Transportation

The town is the junction of China National Highway 315 and

China National Highway 218 China National Highway 218 (G218) runs from Yining, Xinjiang to Ruoqiang, Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang. It is 1,067 kilometres in length and runs southeast from Yining towards Ruoqiang. The road starts at the Kazakh border. ...

, and is the southern terminus of the latter.

References

{{Reflist

External links

County seats in Xinjiang Populated places in Xinjiang Charklik Township-level divisions of Xinjiang