Dzungaria

Coordinates: 45°00′N 85°00′E / 45.000°N 85.000°E / 45.000; 85.000
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

45°00′N 85°00′E / 45.000°N 85.000°E / 45.000; 85.000

Dzungaria
Mongolian Cyrillic
Зүүнгар нутаг
Uyghur name
Uyghurجوڭغار‎

Dzungaria

Northwest China that corresponds to the northern half of Xinjiang. Bound by the Altai Mountains to the north and the Tian Shan mountain range to the south, Dzungaria covers approximately 777,000 km2 (300,000 sq mi), and borders Kazakhstan to the west and Mongolia to the east. In contexts prior to the mid-18th century Dzungar genocide, the term "Dzungaria" could cover a wider area, coterminous with the Oirat-led Dzungar Khanate
.

Although Dzungaria is geographically, historically, and ethnically distinct from the Tarim Basin or Southern Xinjiang (Nanjiang), the Manchu-led Qing dynasty integrated both areas into one province, Xinjiang. Dzungaria is Xinjiang's center of heavy industry, generates most of the region's GDP, and houses its political capital Ürümqi (Oirat for 'beautiful pasture'). As such, Dzungaria continues to attract intraprovincial and interprovincial migration to its cities. In contrast to the Tarim Basin, Dzungaria is relatively well integrated with the rest of China by rail and trade links.[2]

Background

Qing army's final pacification of the Tarim Basin in 1760, the Qing government began to describe Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin as one region called "Xinjiang" (lit. 'new frontier').[4]

The Qing government officially unified Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin into one political entity called Xinjiang Province in 1884, despite protests by some officials who believed that the two regions were better off left separated.[5] The geographic concept of Xinjiang was ultimately a construct of the Qing government; by the end of Qing rule in 1912, Xinjiang's native inhabitants had still not developed a distinct regional identity.[6] However, the foundations for a regional identity were laid by the Qing government's 150-year-long policies of politically isolating Xinjiang from the rest of Central Asia and introducing Han and Hui settlers into the region. These policies pushed forward a cultural identity which sharply contrasted with both the rest of China and the rest of Central Asia.[7]

History

Main article: History of Xinjiang

Before the 21st century, all or part of the region has been ruled or controlled by the

People's Republic of China
.

Etymology

Dzungaria is named after the Dzungar Khanate that existed in Central Asia during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Dzungaria, or Zungharia, derives from the name of the Dzungar people, which comes from the Mongolian term Zűn Gar, or Jüün Gar (depending on the Mongolian dialect used). Zűn (or Jüün) means 'left' and Gar means 'hand'. The name originates from the notion that the Western Mongols (Oirats) were on the left-hand side when the Mongol Empire began its division into East and West Mongols. After this fragmentation, the western Mongolian nation was called Zuun Gar.[8]

Pre-modern era

Swedish officer in captivity there in 1716–1733, which include the region known today as Zhetysu

The first people to inhabit the region were Indo-European-speaking peoples such as the Tocharians in prehistory and the Jushi Kingdom in the first millennium BC.[9][10]

One of the earliest mentions of the Dzungaria region occurs when the

Wushao Ling Pass to Wuwei and emerged in Kashgar.[11]

AD.[12]

Dzungar power reached its height in the second half of the 17th century, when

Khotan, the whole region of the Tian Shan, and the greater proportion of that part of Central Asia which extends from 35° to 50° N and from 72° to 97° E.[8]

After 1761, its territory fell mostly to the Qing dynasty during the campaign against the Dzungars (Xinjiang and north-western Mongolia) and partly to Russian Turkestan (the earlier Kazakh state provinces of Zhetysu and Irtysh river).

Dzungaria and the Silk Road

A traveler going west from China must go either north of the Tian Shan mountains through Dzungaria or south of the mountains through the Tarim Basin. Trade usually took the south side and migrations the north. This is most likely because the Tarim leads to the

Khorgas
in the Ili valley) to avoid the mountains west of the Tarim and because Russia is currently more developed.

Modern era

After the Dzungar genocide, the Qing subsequently began to repopulate the area with Han and Hui people from China Proper.

The population in the 21st century consists of

Uyghurs and Han Chinese. Since 1953, northern Xinjiang has attracted skilled workers from all over China—who have mostly been Han Chinese—to work on water conservation and industrial projects, especially the Karamay oil fields. Intraprovincial migration has mostly been directed towards Dzungaria also, with immigrants from the poor Uyghur areas of southern Xinjiang flooding to the provincial capital of Ürümqi to find work.[citation needed
]

As a political or geographical term, Dzungaria has practically disappeared from the map; but the range of mountains stretching north-east along the southern frontier of the Zhetysu, as the district to the southeast of

Djungarian hamsters
.

Geography

Physical map showing the separation of Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin (Taklamakan) by the Tian Shan Mountains
Ili River
Heaven Lake of Tian Shan
Kanas Lake
Bayanbulak Grassland

Wheat, barley, oats, and sugar beets are grown, and cattle, sheep, and horses are raised in Dzungaria. The fields are irrigated with melted snow from the permanently white-capped mountains. Dzungaria has deposits of coal, gold, and iron, as well as large oil fields.

Dzungarian Basin

Main article: Junggar Basin

The core of Dzungaria is the triangular Dzungarian Basin, also known as Junggar Basin (

Ili River
.

The basin is similar to the larger Tarim Basin on the southern side of the Tian Shan Range. Only a gap in the mountains to the north allows moist air masses to provide the basin lands with enough moisture to remain semi-desert rather than becoming a true desert like most of the Tarim Basin and allows a thin layer of vegetation to grow. This is enough to sustain populations of wild camels, jerboas, and other wild species.[15]

The Dzungarian Basin is a structural basin with thick sequences of Paleozoic-Pleistocene rocks with large estimated

Gurbantunggut Desert, China's second largest, is in the center of the basin.[17]

The Dzungarian basin does not have a single

Lake Ulungur
. The Southwestern part of the Dzungarian basin drains into the
Lake Ailik. During the region's geological past, a much larger lake (the "Old Manas Lake") was located in the area of today's Manas Lake; it was fed not only by the streams that presently flow toward it but also by the Irtysh and Ulungur, which too were flowing toward the Old Manas Lake at the time.[18]

The cold climate of nearby Siberia influences the climate of the Dzungarian Basin, making the temperature colder—as low as −4 °F (−20 °C)—and providing more precipitation, ranging from 3 to 10 inches (76 to 254 mm), compared to the warmer, drier basins to the south. Runoff from the surrounding mountains into the basin supplies several lakes. The ecologically rich habitats traditionally included meadows, marshlands, and rivers. However, most of the land is now used for agriculture.[15]

It is a largely

Kazakhstan Block
and was once part of an independent continent before the Altai mountains formed in the late Paleozoic. It does not contain the abundant minerals of Kazakhstan and may have been a pre-existing continental block before the Kazakhstan Block was formed.

Karamai are the main cities; other smaller oasis
towns dot the piedmont areas.

Ecology

Dzungaria is home to a semi-desert

tamarisk (Tamarix sibirimosissima), and willow (Salix ledebouriana
).

The northeastern portion of the Dzungarian Basin semi-desert lies within Great Gobi National Park, and is home to herds of Onagers (Equus hemionus), goitered gazelles (Gazella subgutturosa) and Wild Bactrian camels (Camelus ferus).

The basin was one of the last

extinct
in the wild, though it has since been reintroduced in areas of Mongolia and China.

Paleontology

Dzungaria and its derivatives are used to name a number of pre-historic animals,

Dzungar Basin
:

A notable find, in February 2006, is the oldest

tyrannosaur fossil unearthed by a team of scientists from George Washington University who were conducting a study in the Dzungarian Basin. The species, named Guanlong, lived 160 million years ago, more than 90 million years before the famed Tyrannosaurus rex.[citation needed
]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Also transliterated variously as Zungaria, Dzungharia, Zungharia, Dzhungaria, Zhungaria, Djungaria, or Jungaria

References

Citations

  1. ISBN 978-0-7656-3192-3
    .
  2. ^ Stahle, Laura N (August 2009). "Ethnic Resistance and State Environmental Policy: Uyghurs and Mongols" (PDF). University of southern California.[permanent dead link]
  3. ^ Liu & Faure 1996, p. 69.
  4. ^ Liu & Faure 1996, p. 70.
  5. ^ Liu & Faure 1996, p. 78.
  6. ^ Liu & Faure 1996, p. 67.
  7. ^ Liu & Faure 1996, p. 77.
  8. ^ a b c  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Dzungaria". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 787.
  9. ^ Hill (2009), p. 109.
  10. ISBN 0-8135-1304-9
    .
  11. ^ Silk Road, North China, C.Michael Hogan, the Megalithic Portal, ed. A. Burnham
  12. ^ The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, By René Grousset
  13. ^ Grosset, 'The Empire of the Steppes', p xxii,
  14. ^ "Jungar Basin". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2008-02-13.
  15. ^ a b World Wildlife Fund, ed. (2001). "Junggar Basin semi-desert". WildWorld Ecoregion Profile. National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on 2010-03-08. Retrieved 2008-02-13.
  16. ^ "Geochemistry of oils from the Junggar Basin, Northwest China". AAPG Bulletin, GeoScience World. 1997. Retrieved 2008-02-13.
  17. ^ "Junggar Basin semi-desert". Terrestrial Ecoregions. World Wildlife Fund. Retrieved 2008-02-13.
  18. doi:10.3724/SP.J.1227.2010.00167
  19. ^ Nature, Nature Publishing Group, Norman Lockyer, 1869

Sources

External links

  • Media related to Zungharia at Wikimedia Commons
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