Ningxia

Ningxia,^[a] officially the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region in Northwestern China.

Formerly a province, Ningxia was incorporated into Gansu in 1954 but was later separated from Gansu in 1958 and reconstituted as an autonomous region for the Hui people, one of the 56 officially recognised nationalities of China. Twenty percent of China's Hui population lives in Ningxia.^[7]

Ningxia is bounded by Shaanxi to the east, Gansu to the south and west and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to the north and has an area of around 66,400 square kilometres (25,600 sq mi).^[1] This sparsely settled, mostly desert region lies partially on the Loess Plateau and in the vast plain of the Yellow River and features the Great Wall of China along its northeastern boundary. Over about 2000 years, an extensive system of canals (with a total length of approximately 1397 kilometers)^[8] has been built from Qin dynasty. Extensive land reclamation and irrigation projects have made increased cultivation possible. The arid region of Xihaigu, which covers large parts of the province, suffers from severe water shortage, which the canals were intended to alleviate.^[9]

Ningxia was the core area of the Western Xia in the 11th–13th centuries, established by the Tangut people; its name, "Peaceful Xia", derived from the Mongol conquest of the state.^[10] The Tanguts made significant achievements in literature, art, music, and architecture, particularly invented Tangut script. Long one of the country's poorest areas, a small winemaking industry has become economically important since the 1980s. Before the arrival of viticulture, Ningxia's 6.8 million people, 36 per cent of whom are Muslims from the Hui ethnic group, relied largely on animal grazing, subsistence agriculture and the cultivation of wolfberries used in traditional Chinese medicine. Since then, winemaking has become the premier specialty of Ningxia, and the province devotes almost 40,000 hectares to vineyards and producing 120 million bottles of wine in 2017 – a quarter of the entire nation's production.^[11]

History

As a frontier zone between nomadic pastoralists and sedentary farmers, Ningxia was a frequent seat of war and incursions by non-Chinese tribes. Ningxia and its surrounding areas were incorporated into the

By the 11th century the

A number of Chinese artifacts dating from the Tang dynasty and Song dynasty, some of which had been owned by Emperor Zhenzong, were excavated and then came into the hands of Ma Hongkui, who refused to publicize the findings. Among the artifacts were a white marble tablet from the Tang dynasty, gold nails, and bands made out of metal. It was not until after Ma died that his wife went to Taiwan in 1971 from America to bring the artifacts to Chiang Kai-shek, who turned them over to the Taipei National Palace Museum.^[16]

Geography

Present-day Ningxia is one of the nation's smallest provincial-level units and borders the provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. At 3556 meters above sea level, Aobaogeda (敖包疙瘩) in the Helan Mountains is the highest point in Ningxia.^[17]

Ningxia is a relatively dry, desert-like region and features a diverse geography of forested mountains and hills, table lands, deserts, flood plains and basins cut through by the

The northern section, through which the Yellow River flows, supports the best agricultural land. A railroad, linking Lanzhou with Baotou, crosses the region. A highway has been built across the Yellow River at Yinchuan.

On 16 December 1920, the Haiyuan earthquake, 8.6 magnitude, at 36°36′N 105°19′E / 36.6°N 105.32°E / 36.6; 105.32, initiated a series of landslides that killed an estimated 200,000 people. Over 600 large loess landslides created more than 40 new lakes.^[18][19]

Part of a series on Islam in China
History By dynasty Tang Song Yuan Ming Qing Rebellions and revolts Jahriyya revolt Panthay Rebellion (1856–1873) First Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) Second Dungan Revolt (1895–1896) Afaqi Khoja revolts Post-dynastic China 1912–present Second Sino-Japanese War Islamophobia
Major figures Afaq Khoja Du Wenxiu Hu Dahai Hu Songshan Kasim Tuet Liu Zhi Ma Anliang Ma Bufang Ma Buqing Ma Fuxiang Ma Gui Ma Hualong Ma Laichi Ma Mingxin Ma Qixi Ma Wanfu Ma Yize Ma Zhu Shams al-Din Su fei-erh Yeheidie'erding Yusuf Ma Dexin Wang Daiyu Zhang Chengzhi Zheng He
Culture Architecture Cuisine (Uyghur) Han Kitab Mosques Shrines Sini script Sufi orders Uyghur Arabic Xiao'erjing Islamic Association of China
Cities Regions Hong Kong Kashgar Linxia Macau Ningxia Sichuan Xinjiang Xunhua
Groups Ahmadis Hui Uyghurs Kazakhs Dongxiangs Kyrgyz Salar Bonans Tajiks Uzbeks Tatars Utsul Tibetans Ili Turks
Islam portal •  China portal
v t e

In 2006, satellite images indicated that a 700 by 200-meter fenced area within Ningxia—5 km (3.1 mi) southwest of Yinchuan, near the remote village of Huangyangtan—is a near-exact 1:500 scale terrain model reproduction of a 450 by 350-kilometer area of Aksai Chin bordering India, complete with mountains, valleys, lakes and hills. Its purpose is as yet unknown.^[20][21]

Grasslands

It was reported that approximately 34 percent (33.85 million

The region is 1,200 kilometres (750 mi) from the sea and has an arid continental climate on the north to humid continental climate to the south, with average summer temperatures rising to 17 to 24 °C (63 to 75 °F) in July and average winter temperatures dropping to between −7 and −15 °C (19 and 5 °F) in January. Seasonal extreme temperatures can reach 39 °C (102 °F) in summer and −30 °C (−22 °F) in winter. The diurnal temperature variation can reach above 17 °C (31 °F), especially in spring. Annual rainfall averages from 190 to 700 millimetres (7.5 to 27.6 in), with more rain falling in the south of the region.

Mineral resources

Ningxia is rich in mineral resources with proven deposits of 34 kinds of minerals, much of which located in grassland areas.^[23] In 2011 it was estimated that the potential value per capita of these resources accounted for 163.5 percent of the nation's average. Ningxia boasts verified coal reserves of over 30 billion tons, with an estimated reserve of more than 202 billion tons, ranking sixth nationwide. Coal deposits are spread over one-third of the total surface of Ningxia, and mined in four major fields in the Helan and Xiangshan mountains, Ningdong and Yuanzhou (or Guyuan). The region's reserves of oil and natural gas can be found in Yanchi and Lingwu County, and are ideal for large-scale development of oil, natural gas and chemical industries. Ningxia leads China in gypsum deposits, with a proven reserve of more than 4.5 billion tons, of which the rarely found, top-grade gypsum accounts for half of the total deposits. The Hejiakouzi deposit in Tongxin County features a reserve of 20 million tons of gypsum with a total thickness of 100 meters. There is a considerable deposit of quartz sandstone, of which 17 million tons have been ascertained. In addition, there are phosphorus, flint, copper, iron, barite, other minerals and Helan stone – a special clay stone.^[10][29]

Governance

The politics of Ningxia is structured in a dual party-government system like all other governing institutions in mainland China.^{[citation needed]}

The Chairman of the Autonomous Region is the highest-ranking official in the People's Government of Ningxia. However, in the Autonomous Region's dual party-government governing system, the Chairman has less power than the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Ningxia Committee Secretary, colloquially termed the "Ningxia CCP Party Chief".^{[citation needed]}

Ningxia has a friendship agreement with Sogn og Fjordane county of Norway.^[30]

Administrative divisions

Ningxia is divided into five

:

Administrative divisions of Ningxia
Yinchuan Shizuishan Wuzhong Guyuan Zhongwei
Division code[31]	Division	Area in km2[32]	Population 2020[33]	Seat	Divisions[34]
					Districts	Counties	CL cities
640000	Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region	66,400.00	7,202,654	Yinchuan city	9	11	2
640100	Yinchuan city	8,874.61	2,859,074	Jinfeng District	3	2	1
640200	Shizuishan city	5,208.13	751,389	Dawukou District	2	1
640300	Wuzhong city	21,420.14	1,382,713	Litong District	2	2	1
640400	Guyuan city	13,449.03	1,142,142	Yuanzhou District	1	4
640500	Zhongwei city	17,448.09	1,067,336	Shapotou District	1	2

Administrative divisions in Chinese and varieties of romanizations
English	Chinese	Pinyin	Xiao'erjing
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region	宁夏回族自治区	Níngxià Huízú Zìzhìqū	نِئٍ‌ثِيَا خُوِزُو زِجِ‌ٿِيُوِ
Yinchuan city	银川市	Yínchuān Shì	ءٍچُوًا شِ
Shizuishan city	石嘴山市	Shízuǐshān Shì	شِ‌ظُوِشًا شِ
Wuzhong city	吴忠市	Wúzhōng Shì	وُجْو شِ
Guyuan city	固原市	Gùyuán Shì	قُ‌يُوًا شِ
Zhongwei city	中卫市	Zhōngwèi Shì	جْووِ شِ

The five prefecture-level cities of Ningxia are subdivided into 22

counties

).

Urban areas

Population by urban areas of prefecture & county cities
#	Cities	2020 Urban area[35]	2010 Urban area[36]	2020 City proper
1	Yinchuan	1,230,650	1,159,457	2,859,074
2	Shizuishan	422,043	403,901	751,389
3	Wuzhong	400,677	232,134	1,382,713
4	Guyuan	267,810	130,155	1,142,142
5	Zhongwei	249,307	160,279	1,067,336
6	Lingwu	200,920	125,976	see Yinchuan
7	Qingtongxia	142,349	99,367	see Wuzhong

Economy

Rural Ningxia was for long an officially designated poverty area, and remains on the lower rungs of the developmental ladder.^[23] It is the province with the third smallest GDP (Tibet being the last) in China, even though its neighbors, Inner Mongolia and Shaanxi, are among the strongest emerging provincial economies in the country. Its nominal GDP in 2011 was just 200.0 billion yuan (US$32.7 billion) and a per capita GDP of 21,470 yuan (US$3,143). It comprises 0.44% of the national economy