Ruoqiang Town zh, c= , p=Ruòqiāng; Uyghur: Чакилик: Qakilik or Charklik 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 ...

Ruoqiang County Ruoqiang County ( zh, s= ) as the official romanized name, also SASM/GNC romanization#Uyghur, transliterated from Uyghur as Qakilik County (; zh, links=no , s=卡克里克县), is a County (China), county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region ...

Bayin'gholin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture in the southeastern Xinjiang, China. It borders Gansu to the east, Qinghai to the southeast and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the south. It is the largest prefecture-level di ...

in southeastern

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' ...

, People's Republic of China. Ruoqiang Town is the county seat of the Ruoqiang County, and therefore is the place that less detailed maps label as "Ruoqiang County" or just "Ruoqiang". The postal code is 841 800. There is a two-laned asphalt highway to

Korla Korla,The official spelling according to also known as Kurla, United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency or Kuerle, is the second largest city by population in Xinjiang, China. It is a county-level city and the seat of Bayingolin Mo ...

, north, and west to

Hotan Hotan (also known by other names) is a major oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang, an autonomous region in Northwestern China. The city proper of Hotan broke off from the larger Hotan County to become an administrative area in its own right i ...

. There is no motorable road east to

Dunhuang Dunhuang () is a county-level city in northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Sachu (Dunhuang) was ...

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 ...

, but one can now drive southeast through the Altun Shan range and then north through part of the Tsaidam to Dunhuang.

Names

Lionel Giles has recorded the following names for Ruoqiang Town (with his Wade-Giles forms of the Chinese names converted to

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

): :"''Yixun'', or Yixiu, capital of Shanshan after 77 B.C. (Note: This is an incorrect identification, the capital's name was, in fact, Yüni 扜泥.) :Shanshan Zhen ui :Nafubo (纳缚波) uanzang :Dianhe ang :Shicheng Zhen ang after A.D. 675 :Great Nob ibetan records :City of Lop arco Polo:Charkhlik odern name"

History

A site within or adjoining Ruoqiang Town, Yüni 扜泥 was an ancient settlement of the independent kingdom of Kroraina (Chinese: Lou-Lan). During the latter part of the Former Han and throughout the Later Han, Yüni was the capital of the kingdom of

Shanshan Shanshan (; ) was a kingdom located at the north-eastern end of the Taklamakan Desert near the great, but now mostly dry, salt lake known as Lop Nur. The kingdom was originally an independent city-state, known in local Gandhari documents as '' ...

,Hill (2015) Vol.I, pp. 93-94. a Han vassal state that succeeded Kroraina. The modern Ruoqiang Town was founded in 1984. In 2014, Xincheng and Loulan were established as residential communities.

Geography

Almost adjacent to the town are the Tieganlike

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 ...

, to the east, and Wutamu

Township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...

, to the west. They, however, are not administratively part of Ruoqiang Town, but are separate township-level administrative units. Ruoqiang Town was used by numerous notable explorers as a launching point to the Lop Nor archaeological sites, which are located within to the northeast.

Climate

Ruoqiang has a

cold desert climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk'') is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

''BWk'') with extreme seasonal variation in temperature. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from in January to , and the annual mean is . Precipitation totals only annually, and mostly falls in summer. No month has less than 60% of possible sunshine, and the area receives close to 3,100 hours of bright sunshine annually.

Administrative divisions

As of 2018, the town was made up of five residential communities: Residential Communities * Shengli (), Wenhua (), Tuanjie (), Xincheng (), Loulan ()

Transportation

The town is the junction of

China National Highway 315 Constructed in 1954, the Qinghai-Xinjiang Highway, also known as the China National Highway 315 (G315) runs west from Xining, Qinghai towards Kashgar, Xinjiang. It is in length. In 1994 the departments of communication and transportation in Qing ...

and China National Highway 218, and is the southern terminus of the latter.

References

External links

{{Authority control County seats in Xinjiang Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture Charklik Ruoqiang County