Minqin County () is a
county
A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...
of
Gansu
Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...
province, China. It is under the jurisdiction of
Wuwei City. Its postal code is 733300, and its population in 1999 was 281,826 people.
In older literature, today's Minqin is referred to as Zhenfan ().
[ According to ]Pyotr Kozlov
Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov (; 3 October 1863 in Dukhovshchina – 26 September 1935 in Peterhof) was a Russian and Soviet traveller and explorer who continued the studies of Nikolai Przhevalsky in Mongolia and Tibet.
Biography
Although prepar ...
, the Mongol name for the city was Sogo Khoto.
Geographically, Minqin county occupies one of Gansu's panhandle
A salient, panhandle, or bootheel is an elongated protrusion of a geopolitical entity, such as a subnational entity or a sovereign state.
While similar to a peninsula in shape, a salient is most often not surrounded by water on three sides. Ins ...
s, bordering in the north, east, and southeast on the Alashan League of Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...
.
History
Historically, Chinese agricultural settlement in the area was made possible by the Shiyang River
The Shiyang River (石羊河), previously called the Gu River (谷水), flows through the eastern Hexi Corridor in China.
The catchment area of the Shiyang River covers about 41,600 km2, most of which lies within today's Wuwei prefecture-lev ...
, flowing from the Qilian Mountains
The Qilian Mountains (), together with the Altyn-Tagh sometimes known as the Nan Shan, as it is to the south of the Hexi Corridor, is a northern outlier of the Kunlun Mountains, forming the border between Qinghai and the Gansu provinces of n ...
.[Will the Desert Claim Minqin?](_blank)
/ref> However, the livelihood of Chinese farmers here was often precarious;
in the 1920s it was considered as somewhat of a regular famine district.Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore (July 29, 1900 – May 31, 1989) was an American Orientalist and writer. He was an influential scholar of China and Central Asia, especially Mongolia. Although he never earned a college degree, in the 1930s he was editor of '' Pac ...
, ''The Desert Road to Turkestan''. London, Methuen, 1928.Xinjiang
Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...
. For example, as of 1926, the main population of the small oasis of Santanghu (now, officially, Santanghu () in what's today Barkol Kazakh Autonomous County
Barkol Kazakh Autonomous County (sometimes Barkul or Balikul in English) is a part of Hami Prefecture in Xinjiang and has an area of . It forms part of the China–Mongolia border (bordering the Mongolian provinces of Khovd and Govi-Altai) on t ...
of Xinjiang were migrants from Minqin (Zhenfan) and their descendants.[Lattimore (1928), p. 274]
By the late 20th century, the environmental situation in the Minqin area deteriorated, as smaller amounts of the Shiyang River water reached the area, due to the increased irrigation of use of it upstream
Upstream may refer to:
* Upstream (hydrology), the direction towards the source of a stream (against the direction of flow)
* Upstream (bioprocess), part of therapeutic cell manufacturing processes from early cell isolation and cultivation until ...
. Ground water levels fell, and desertification became a serious threat.sandstorms
A dust storm, also called a sandstorm, is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Fine particles are transport ...
in China.
Climate
Administrative divisions
Minqin County is divided to 18 towns.
See also
* List of administrative divisions of Gansu
Gansu, a province of the People's Republic of China, is made up of the following administrative divisions.
Administrative divisions
These administrative divisions are explained in greater detail at Administrative divisions of the People's Repub ...
References
Official website (Chinese)
{{authority control
Minqin County
Minqin County () is a county of Gansu province, China. It is under the jurisdiction of Wuwei City. Its postal code is 733300, and its population in 1999 was 281,826 people.
In older literature, today's Minqin is referred to as Zhenfan (). Acc ...
Wuwei, Gansu