Oytak Town () is a

town 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 ...

Akto County Akto County (also known as Aqtu, Aktu, or Aketao; zh, c=阿克陶县, p=Ākètáo Xiàn) is a county in Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. The county borders Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan and has five ...

in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. Located in the middle of the northeast of the county, the town covers an area of 1,537 square kilometers with a population of 5,093 (as of 2017). It has 4

villages A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban village ...

with 16 villagers' groups under its jurisdiction, its seat is at ''Tokkuzotak'' ().

Name

The name of Oytak is from

Kyrgyz language Kyrgyz is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia. Kyrgyz is the official language of Kyrgyzstan and a significant minority language in the Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China and in the Gorno-Badak ...

, meaning "sunken ravine" (), or "a lowland in mountains" () from the

old Turkic language Old Siberian Turkic, generally known as East Old Turkic and often shortened to Old Turkic, was a Siberian Turkic languages, Siberian Turkic language spoken around East Turkistan and Mongolia. It was first discovered in inscriptions originating f ...

. It is named after the geologically famous Oytak Valley () in the land. The name of the town is also spelled Oytag.

Geography

The town of Oytak is located between 75°58′～76°03′

east longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east-west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter la ...

and 39°12′- 39°16′

north latitude In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the north North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, o ...

, 50 kilometers southwest of the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

Akto Town Akto Town () is a town and the county seat of Akto County in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. Located in the northeast of the county, the town covers an area of 136 square kilometers with a population of 21,560 (as of 2017). It has 19 comm ...

. The

Karakoram Highway The Karakoram Highway (, ), also known as the KKH, National Highway 35 (), N-35, and the ChinaPakistan Friendship Highway, is a National Highways of Pakistan, national highway which extends from Hasan Abdal in the Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab p ...

runs through the town north to south, with convenient transportation. The area has a maximum length of 58 kilometers from west to east, a maximum length of 52 kilometers from north to south, and a total area of 1,537 square kilometers. Oytak is a semi-agricultural and semi-pastoral town with an area of 842.58 hectares of

arable land Arable land (from the , "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for the purposes of a ...

, 49.21 hectares of

orchard An orchard is an intentional plantation of trees or shrubs that is maintained for food production. Orchards comprise fruit tree, fruit- or nut (fruit), nut-producing trees that are generally grown for commercial production. Orchards are also so ...

and 48.92 hectares of

forest land Forest cover is the amount of trees that covers a particular area of land. It may be measured as relative (in percent) or absolute (in square kilometres/square miles). Nearly a third of the world's land surface is covered with forest, with closed-c ...

. Oytak is a temperate continental dry climate with cool weather. The annual average temperature is 7.8 °C, the average temperature in January is −8.1

°C The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius temperature scale "Celsius temperature scale, also called centigrade temperature scale, scale based on 0 ° for the melting point of water and 100 ° for the boiling point ...

, the average temperature in July is 20.8 °C, and the frost-free period is 130–200 days.

Resources

The main

water system A water supply network or water supply system is a system of engineered hydrologic and hydraulic components that provide water supply. A water supply system typically includes the following: # A drainage basin (see water purification – sourc ...

is the Gez River (), the water resources are richer in the town. The town's economy is dominated by animal husbandry, and farming and animal husbandry are run. The land on both sides of the Gez River Valley is more fertile and flat. The main crops are wheat and corn. There are precious animals such as snow chicken and mongolian gazelle in the territory, and there are mineral resources such as iron, copper, gold, coal,

oil shale Oil shale is an organic-rich Granularity, fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of Organic compound, organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general compos ...

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

and

zeolite Zeolites are a group of several microporous, crystalline aluminosilicate minerals commonly used as commercial adsorbents and catalysts. They mainly consist of silicon, aluminium, oxygen, and have the general formula ･y where is either a meta ...

. The tourism resources are well-known Oytagh Glacier Park (), with

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

s, scenery and cool climate. File:Karakorum-oytak-glaciar-d11.jpg, Snow mountains and glaciers, close to

File:Karakorum-oytak-glaciar-d08.jpg,

s File:Karakorum-oytak-barranco-d01.jpg, mountains File:Karakorum-oytak-cascada-d01.jpg, mountains File:奥依塔克邮政所北面的景色.jpg, grassland in Oytak File:Karakorum-oytak-hotel-d01.jpg , a hotel, close to

Administrative divisions

The town has 4

under its jurisdiction. ;4 administration villages: * At'oynaq village (, , ) * Oytagh village (, , ) * Pilal village (, , ) * Chalma'eriq village (, , ) ;

Unincorporated village An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

s * Toqquztagh (, , ) * Oytagh Egiz (, , )

References

{{Authority control Township-level divisions of Akto County

Name

Geography

Resources

Administrative divisions

See also

References