Bairi Tibetan Autonomous County (), also known as Tianzhu from its Chinese name ( zh, s=天祝藏族自治县), is in the

prefecture-level city A prefecture-level city () or prefectural city is an administrative division of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC), ranking below a province of China, province and above a Counties of the People's Republic of China, county in China's ...

of Wuwei in the central part 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, bordering

Qinghai Qinghai is an inland Provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. It is the largest provinces of China, province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xin ...

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

Name

The Chinese name "Tianzhu" was named by a Tibetan lama Luo Haoxue (罗好学) in 1936, deriving from the combination of "Tiantang" (天堂寺, aka Chortentang Monastery) and "Zhugong" (祝贡寺, aka Drigung Monastery), the Chinese translation of the two largest lamaseries in the county. The Tibetan name Bairi () is pronounced ''Bairi'' in

Standard Tibetan Lhasa Tibetan or Standard Tibetan is a standardized dialect of Tibetan spoken by the people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region. In the traditional "three-branched" ...

, and pronounced ''Hwari'' in the local

Amdo Tibetan Amdo Tibetan (; also called ''Am kä'') is the Tibetic language spoken in Amdo (now mostly in Qinghai, some in Ngawa and Gannan). It has two varieties, the farmer dialects and the nomad dialects. Amdo is one of the three branches of tradition ...

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 Autonomous counties () and autonomous banners () are Counties of China, county-level autonomous administrative divisions of China. Autonomous counties tend to have a large number of ethnic minority citizens compared to ordinary counties (if not ...

in China. Between 1958 and 1961, Gulang County was part of Tianzhu. In 1961 the county was placed under Wuwei again.

Administrative divisions

Bairi Tibetan Autonomous County is divided to 14

towns A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

, 5 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 Qingzang Plateau, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South, and East Asia. Geographically, it is located to the north of Himalayas and the Indian s ...

, the

Loess Plateau The Loess Plateau is a plateau in north-central China formed of loess, a clastic rock, clastic silt-like sediment formed by the accumulation of Dust#Atmospheric, wind-blown dust. It is located southeast of the Gobi Desert and is surrounded by t ...

and the Inner Mongolia Plateau, with elevations ranging from 2040 m to 4874 m. It is divided into the watersheds of the Shiyang River and the

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

and crossed by the Wushao Mountain. South of the Wushao Mountain, the climate is

continental Continental may refer to: Places * Continental, Arizona, a small community in Pima County, Arizona, US * Continental, Ohio, a small town in Putnam County, US Arts and entertainment * ''Continental'' (album), an album by Saint Etienne * Continen ...

and north of it, the climate is

semi-arid A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a aridity, dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below Evapotranspiration#Potential evapotranspiration, potential evapotranspiration, but not as l ...

. The land is mostly covered by grasslands and forests.

Climate

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 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