Shanshan County () as the official romanized name, also transliterated from Uyghur as Piqan County (; ), is a county within the
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 ...
and is under the administrative jurisdiction of the
prefecture-level city
A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province and above a county in China's administrative structure.
During the Republican era, many of China ...
of
Turpan
Turpan (also known as Turfan or Tulufan, , ug, تۇرپان) is a prefecture-level city located in the east of the autonomous region of Xinjiang, China. It has an area of and a population of 632,000 (2015).
Geonyms
The original name of the cit ...
. It contains an area of , occupying the eastern majority of Turpan. According to the 2002 census, it has a population of .
The county seat is in Shanshan Town.
Name
The county is named after the ancient
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 ...
Kingdom, although the kingdom was actually located mostly outside of the borders of the modern county, in the Lop Nur area. The place was originally named Piqian, and the
Grand coordinator and provincial governor
A ''xunfu'' was an important imperial Chinese provincial office under both the Ming (14th–17th centuries) and Qing (17th–20th centuries) dynasties. However, the purview of the office under the two dynasties differed markedly. Under the Ming ...
of Xinjiang proposed the name of Shanshan when
Guangxu Emperor
The Guangxu Emperor (14 August 1871 – 14 November 1908), personal name Zaitian, was the tenth Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign lasted from 1875 to 1908, but in practice he ruled, w ...
decided to set up a county in 1902.
History
The local geology and the desert climate made it possible to discover a number of important fossil sites in the area, including China's largest cluster of fossilized
dinosaur tracks
A trace fossil, also known as an ichnofossil (; from el, ἴχνος ''ikhnos'' "trace, track"), is a fossil record of biological activity but not the preserved remains of the plant or animal itself. Trace fossils contrast with body fossils ...
and China's largest
dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
.
Important
dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
Subashi Formation
The Subashi Formation () is a Late Cretaceous (Campanian to Maastrichtian)Xi et al., 2018 formation from the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of western China.Tuyugou Township (). The Shanshanosaurus is named after Shanshan.
In 2008–2011, a team of German and Chinese paleontologists discovered and studied an "enormous" accumulation of
Jurassic
The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...
turtle fossils at a site they nicknamed "
Mesa
A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by a ...
Chelonia", approximately NNE of Shanshan Town. It is estimated that at least 1,800 skeletons of freshwater turtles, preliminary identified as belonging to the '' Annemys'' species were buried in this bone bed, in a
stratigraphic
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks.
Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithostra ...
layer probably belonging to the
Qigu Formation
The Qigu Formation is a Late Jurassic ( Oxfordian) geologic formation in the Southern Junggar Basin in China. Indeterminate Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation, including theropod teeth and a fibula. ...
. The researchers suggest that during a drought the turtles congregating at one of the few remaining water sources, and died there once that last water hole dried out. Then the skeletons were transported to the present location by a
debris flow
Debris flows are geological phenomena in which water-laden masses of soil and fragmented rock rush down mountainsides, funnel into stream channels, entrain objects in their paths, and form thick, muddy deposits on valley floors. They generally ...
during a catastrophic rainfall event, forming a ''Konzentrat-
Lagerstätte
A Lagerstätte (, from ''Lager'' 'storage, lair' '' Stätte'' 'place'; plural ''Lagerstätten'') is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues. These f ...
''.
According to the paleontologist Walter Joyce, the Shanshan find has more than doubled the total number of Jurassic turtle specimens known to science. The excavated fossils have been transported to Shanshan Town, where they will be housed in the county museum (currently under construction).
On January 6, 2009, five well-preserved mummies of ethnic Han men who lived 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-spea ...
were excavated at a construction site near the
Flaming Mountains
The Flaming Mountains () or Huoyan Mountains, are barren, eroded, red sandstone hills in the Tian Shan of Xinjiang. They lie near the northern rim of the Taklamakan Desert and east of the city of Turpan. Their striking gullies and trenches caused b ...
in the county.
In June 2013, an incident in Lukchun lead to the deaths of dozens.
China National Highway 312
China National Highway 312 (312国道), also referred to as Route 312 or The Mother Road, is a key east-west route beginning in Shanghai and ending at Khorgas, Xinjiang in the Ili River valley, on the border with Kazakhstan. In total it spans ...
, the
Lanzhou–Xinjiang Railway
The Lanzhou−Xinjiang railway or Lanxin railway (), is the longest railway in Northwestern China. It runs 1904 kilometres (1,183 miles) from Lanzhou, Gansu, through the Hexi Corridor, to Ürümqi, in Xinjiang. It was Xinjiang's only rail link ...