Huocheng County () as the official romanized name, also transliterated from Uyghur as Korgas County (; ), is situated 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 under the administration of the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. It is located between

Yining YiningThe official spelling according to (), also known as Ghulja ( ug, غۇلجا) or Qulja ( kk, قۇلجا) and formerly Ningyuan (), is a county-level city in Northwestern Xinjiang, People's Republic of China and the seat of the Ili Kazakh A ...

and the border city Khorgas, occupying an area of and has a population of 360,000 (2004 estimate). Including the Han and Uyghur nationalities, there are twenty nine ethnic groups living in the county. North of Huocheng County is Wenquan County; to the south lies the

Ili River The Ili ( ug, ئىلى دەرياسى, Ili deryasi, Ili dəryasi, 6=Или Дәряси; kk, Ile, ; russian: Или; zh, c=伊犁河, p=Yīlí Hé, dng, Йили хә, Xiao'erjing: اِلِ حْ; mn, Ил, literally "Bareness") is a river si ...

. Its Western side is Khorgas City;

lies about to the east.

History

Within Huocheng County lies the important ruined site of ancient Almaliq. The mausoleum of the first khan of Moghulistan Tughlugh Timur is within the county as well. In the 1760s, nine fortresses were built in the Ili River Basin and four of them were located within the modern Huocheng County. Huiyuan was the headquarter of the General of Ili and as such it was the military and administrative center of

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 northwes ...

until the 1860s. Suiding County () was established in 1888 with Suiding as county seat. In 1914, the western area of Shuiding County was organized into Khorgas County, later abbreviated to Huocheng County, with Gongchen ( Khorgas) as county seat. In 1965 Suiding was renamed Shuiding. In 1966, Shuiding County merged into Huocheng County with Shuiding as the county seat of the new Huocheng County. In 2014, Khorgas became a county-level city separate from Huocheng County.

Administrative divisions

The county includes five

towns 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 or ...

and four townships. Towns: * Shuiding / Süydüng () (the county seat), * Qingshuihe / Chingsixoza (), * Lucaogou / Losigung (), * Huiyuan / Küre (), * Sarbulaq (, ''Sarbulaq'') Townships: * Lengger (), * Sandixoza (), * Sengung (), * Dashigu () There are 5

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 o ...

s in Huocheng County, which are as follows: *ئىزاھات: There are 4 Township in Huocheng County, which are as follows:

Climate

Economy

In agriculture, the local population cultivate

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...

and other crops including

sugar beet A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and which is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet ('' Beta vulgaris''). Together ...

cotton Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor pe ...

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

, apples,

animal husbandry Animal husbandry is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, fibre, milk, or other products. It includes day-to-day care, selective breeding, and the raising of livestock. Husbandry has a long history, starti ...

with

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ...

and

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticate ...

. The main

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2 ...

s extracted in the area include

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

phosphorus Phosphorus is a chemical element with the symbol P and atomic number 15. Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Ea ...

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pink ...

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

, Iceland spar and

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...

, etc.

Transport

Huocheng is served by China National Highway 312 and the Jinghe-Yining-Khorgas Railway. There is a border crossing into Kazakhstan at Khorgas, where the road continues to Zharkent in Panfilov District. The Jinghe–Yining–Khorgas Railway through Huocheng county was completed in 2010, reaching practically to the Kazakhstan border. There are plans to construct a connecting railway line on the Kazakh side, creating China's second railway link to

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...

besides Alashankou.

References

External links

Huocheng County information
at the site of Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture
County Map

Thoughts about the history of Yining City and Huocheng County
(the writer's point of view on how the places ''should'' be called) *

Henry Lansdell Henry Lansdell (10January 18414October 1919) was a nineteenth-century British priest in the Church of England. He was also a noted explorer and author. Life Born in Tenterden, Kent, Lansdell was the son of a schoolmaster and home schooled bef ...

, "Russian Central Asia: Including Kuldja, Bokhara, Khiva and Merv", vol. I
Full text
available at

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

; there is also a 2001 facsimile reprint of the 1885 edition, . (Chapters XIV-XVI in Volume I describe Lansdell's visit to the area in the early 1880s, soon after the Russian withdrawal). {{Xinjiang County-level divisions of Xinjiang Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture