Bairi (Tianzhu) Tibetan Autonomous County (; ) is in the prefecture-level city of Wuwei in the central part of

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibet ...

province, China, bordering Qinghai province to the south and west. It has an area of and approximately 230,000 inhabitants (2003). Its administrative seat is the town of Huazangsi.

Name

The Chinese name "Tianzhu" was named by a Tibetan

Luo Haoxue Luo may refer to: Luo peoples and languages * Luo peoples, an ethno-linguistic group of eastern and central Africa ** Luo people of Kenya and Tanzania or Joluo, an ethnic group in western Kenya, eastern Uganda, and northern Tanzania. *** Luoland, ...

in 1936, combining name of the largest lamasery in the County () and the Zhugong lamasery (). The Tibetan name Bairi () is pronounced ''Bairi'' in

Standard Tibetan Lhasa Tibetan (), or Standard Tibetan, is the Tibetan dialect spoken by educated people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region. In the traditional "three-branch ...

, and pronounced ''Hwari'' in the local Amdo Tibetan and Huarui (华锐) in Chinese. An alternative Tibetan name is Tenzhu (), which is a transcription of the Chinese name Tianzhu.

History

The county was established as the Tianzhu District of Yongdeng County in 1949, but became an autonomous county of Wuwei in the next year. In 1955, Tianzhu was moved under the administration of Zhangye as the first autonomous county in China. Between 1958 and 1961, Gulang County was part of Tianzhu. In 1961 the county was placed under Wuwei again.

Administrative divisions

Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County is divided to 14 towns, 5 townships and 2 others. ;Towns ;Townships ;Others * Tianzhu Building Material Factory () * Tianzhu Coal and Electricity Company ()

Geography

The county is mountainous, being located at the tripoint of the

Tibet Plateau The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the T ...

, the Loess Plateau and the

Inner Mongolia Plateau The Mongolian Plateau is the part of the Central Asian Plateau lying between 37°46′-53°08′N and 87°40′-122°15′E and having an area of approximately . It is bounded by the Greater Hinggan Mountains in the east, the Yin Mountains to th ...

, with elevations ranging from 2040 m to 4874 m. It is divided into the watersheds of the

Shiyang River The Shiyang River (石羊河), previously called the Gu River (谷水), flows through the eastern Hexi Corridor in the China. The catchment area of the Shiyang River covers about 41,600 km2, most of which lies within today's Wuwei prefectur ...

and the Yellow River and crossed by the

Wushao Mountain Wushao Mountain, Wushao Ling Mountain or Wushaoling () is a landform in Gansu Province, China, with significant desert elements on its northern slope. The mountain has been a barrier to transportation since ancient times, when the Northern Silk R ...

. South of the Wushao Mountain, the climate is continental and north of it, the climate is semi-arid. The land is mostly covered by grasslands and forests.

Transport

* China National Highway 312 * Lanzhou–Xinjiang Railway crosses the county, with a station (Tianzhu) in the county seat. With the construction of the

Wushaoling Tunnel The Wushaoling Tunnel () is a 21.05 km dual-bore railway tunnel in Gansu, north-west China. The east-bound bore opened on 30 March 2006. The second bore opened in August 2006. It was briefly the longest railway tunnel in China until the openi ...

under the Wushao Mountain Range (Wushaoling), about the half of the section of the main track of this railway within this county is actually underground.

Ethnic groups in Tianzhu, 2000 census