Dzungaria[a] (/(d)zʊŋˈɡɛəriə/; from the
Mongolian words züün gar, meaning 'left hand'), also known as Northern Xinjiang or Beijiang,[1] is a geographical
subregion in
Northwest China that corresponds to the northern half of
Xinjiang. Bound by the
Altai Mountains to the north and the
Tian Shan mountain range to the south, Dzungaria covers approximately 777,000 km2 (300,000 sq mi), and borders
Kazakhstan to the west and
Mongolia to the east. In contexts prior to the mid-18th century
Dzungar genocide, the term "Dzungaria" could cover a wider area, coterminous with the
Oirat-led
Dzungar Khanate.
Although Dzungaria is geographically, historically, and ethnically distinct from the
Tarim Basin or
Southern Xinjiang (Nanjiang), the
Manchu-led
Qing dynasty integrated both areas into one province, Xinjiang. Dzungaria is Xinjiang's center of
heavy industry, generates most of the region's GDP, and houses its political capital
Ürümqi (
Oirat for 'beautiful pasture'). As such, Dzungaria continues to attract intraprovincial and interprovincial migration to its cities. In contrast to the Tarim Basin, Dzungaria is relatively well integrated with the rest of China by rail and trade links.[2]
Background
Xinjiang has traditionally been divided into two geographically and ethnically distinct regions: Dzungaria, located north of the Tian Shan mountains; and the Tarim Basin, located south of the mountains. At the time of the
Qing conquest of Xinjiang in 1759, Dzungaria was predominantly inhabited by
steppe-dwelling, nomadic
Tibetan-BuddhistDzungars while the Tarim Basin was inhabited by predominantly oasis-dwelling, sedentary,
TurkicMuslim farmers, now known as the
Uyghurs. The Qing government was well aware of the differences between the inhabitants of the two regions, and initially ruled them as separate administrative units.[3] However, after the
Qing army's final pacification of the Tarim Basin in 1760, the Qing government began to describe Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin as one region called "Xinjiang" (
lit.'new frontier').[4]
The Qing government officially unified Dzungaria and the Tarim Basin into one political entity called
Xinjiang Province in 1884, despite protests by some officials who believed that the two regions were better off left separated.[5] The geographic concept of Xinjiang was ultimately a construct of the Qing government; by the end of Qing rule in 1912, Xinjiang's native inhabitants had still not developed a distinct regional identity.[6] However, the foundations for a regional identity were laid by the Qing government's 150-year-long policies of politically isolating Xinjiang from the rest of
Central Asia and introducing Han and Hui settlers into the region. These policies pushed forward a cultural identity which sharply contrasted with both the rest of China and the rest of Central Asia.[7]
Dzungaria is named after the
Dzungar Khanate that existed in
Central Asia during the 17th and 18th centuries.
Dzungaria, or Zungharia, derives from the name of the
Dzungar people, which comes from the
Mongolian term Zűn Gar, or Jüün Gar (depending on the Mongolian dialect used). Zűn (or Jüün) means 'left' and Gar means 'hand'. The name originates from the notion that the Western Mongols (
Oirats) were on the left-hand side when the
Mongol Empire began its division into East and West Mongols. After this fragmentation, the western Mongolian nation was called Zuun Gar.[8]
One of the earliest mentions of the Dzungaria region occurs when the
Han dynasty dispatched an explorer to investigate lands to the west, using the northernmost
Silk Road trackway of about 2,600 kilometres (1,600 mi) in length, which connected the ancient Chinese capital of
Xi'an to the west over the
Wushao Ling Pass to
Wuwei and emerged in
Kashgar.[11]
Istämi of the
Göktürks received the lands of Dzungaria as an inheritance after the death of his father in the latter half of the sixth century
AD.[12]
Dzungar power reached its height in the second half of the 17th century, when
Galdan Boshugtu Khan repeatedly intervened in the affairs of the
Kazakhs to the west, but it was completely destroyed by the
Qing Empire about 1757–1759. It has played an important part in the history of
Mongolia and the great migrations of Mongolian stems westward. Its widest limit included
Kashgar,
Yarkand,
Khotan, the whole region of the
Tian Shan, and the greater proportion of that part of Central Asia which extends from 35° to 50° N and from 72° to 97° E.[8]
A traveler going west from China must go either north of the Tian Shan mountains through Dzungaria or south of the mountains through the Tarim Basin. Trade usually took the south side and migrations the north. This is most likely because the Tarim leads to the
Ferghana Valley and Iran, while Dzungaria leads only to the open steppe. The difficulty with the south side was the high mountains between the Tarim and Ferghana. Furthermore, the Taklamakan is too dry to support much grass, and therefore nomads when they are not robbing caravans. Its inhabitants live mostly in oases formed where rivers run out of the mountains into the desert. These are inhabited by peasants who are unwarlike and merchants who have an interest in keeping trade running smoothly. Dzungaria has a fair amount of grass, few towns to base soldiers in and no significant mountain barriers to the west. Therefore, trade went south and migrations north.[13] Today most trade is north of the mountains (
Dzungarian Gate and
Khorgas in the Ili valley) to avoid the mountains west of the Tarim and because Russia is currently more developed.
Modern era
After the
Dzungar genocide, the Qing subsequently began to repopulate the area with Han and Hui people from China Proper.
The population in the 21st century consists of
Kazakhs,
Kyrgyz,
Mongols,
Uyghurs and
Han Chinese. Since 1953, northern Xinjiang has attracted skilled workers from all over China—who have mostly been
Han Chinese—to work on water conservation and industrial projects, especially the
Karamay oil fields. Intraprovincial migration has mostly been directed towards Dzungaria also, with immigrants from the poor Uyghur areas of southern Xinjiang flooding to the provincial capital of
Ürümqi to find work.[citation needed]
As a political or geographical term, Dzungaria has practically disappeared from the map; but the range of mountains stretching north-east along the southern frontier of the Zhetysu, as the district to the southeast of
Lake Balkhash preserves the name of
Dzungarian Alatau.[8] It also gave name to
Djungarian hamsters.
Geography
Wheat,
barley,
oats, and
sugar beets are grown, and
cattle,
sheep, and
horses are raised in Dzungaria. The fields are irrigated with melted snow from the permanently white-capped mountains. Dzungaria has deposits of
coal,
gold, and
iron, as well as large
oil fields.
The core of Dzungaria is the triangular Dzungarian Basin, also known as Junggar Basin (
simplified Chinese: 准噶尔盆地;
traditional Chinese: 準噶爾盆地;
pinyin: Zhǔngá'ěr Péndì), with its central
Gurbantünggüt Desert. It is bounded by the
Tarbagatai Mountains to the northwest, the
Altai Mountains to the northeast, and the Tian Shan mountains to the south.[14] The three corners are relatively open. The northern corner is the valley of the upper
Irtysh River. The western corner is the
Dzungarian Gate, a historically important gateway between Dzungaria and the
Kazakh Steppe; presently, a highway and a
railway (opened in 1990) run through it, connecting China with Kazakhstan. The eastern corner of the basin leads to
Gansu and the rest of China. In the south, an easy pass leads from
Ürümqi to the
Turfan Depression. In the southwest, the tall
Borohoro Mountains branch of the Tian Shan separates the basin from the upper
Ili River.
The basin is similar to the larger Tarim Basin on the southern side of the Tian Shan Range. Only a gap in the mountains to the north allows moist air masses to provide the basin lands with enough moisture to remain semi-desert rather than becoming a true desert like most of the Tarim Basin and allows a thin layer of vegetation to grow. This is enough to sustain populations of wild
camels,
jerboas, and other wild species.[15]
The Dzungarian Basin is a structural basin with thick sequences of Paleozoic-Pleistocene rocks with large estimated
oil reserves.[16] The
Gurbantunggut Desert, China's second largest, is in the center of the basin.[17]
The Dzungarian basin does not have a single
catchment center. The northernmost section of Dzungaria is part of the basin of the
Irtysh River, which ultimately drains into the
Arctic Ocean. The rest of the region is split into a number of
endorheic basins. In particular, south of the Irtysh, the
Ulungur River ends up in the (presently)
endorheicLake Ulungur. The Southwestern part of the Dzungarian basin drains into the
Aibi Lake. In the west-central part of the region, streams flow into (or toward) a group of endorheic lakes that include
Lake Manas and
Lake Ailik. During the region's geological past, a much larger lake (the "Old Manas Lake") was located in the area of today's Manas Lake; it was fed not only by the streams that presently flow toward it but also by the Irtysh and Ulungur, which too were flowing toward the Old Manas Lake at the time.[18]
The cold climate of nearby Siberia influences the climate of the Dzungarian Basin, making the temperature colder—as low as −4 °F (−20 °C)—and providing more precipitation, ranging from 3 to 10 inches (76 to 254 mm), compared to the warmer, drier basins to the south. Runoff from the surrounding mountains into the basin supplies several lakes. The ecologically rich habitats traditionally included meadows, marshlands, and rivers. However, most of the land is now used for agriculture.[15]
It is a largely
steppe and semi-desert basin surrounded by high mountains: the Tian Shan (ancient
Mount Imeon) in the south and the
Altai in the north. Geologically it is an extension of the Paleozoic
Kazakhstan Block and was once part of an independent continent before the Altai mountains formed in the late Paleozoic. It does not contain the abundant minerals of Kazakhstan and may have been a pre-existing continental block before the Kazakhstan Block was formed.
Ürümqi,
Yining and
Karamai are the main cities; other smaller
oasis towns dot the piedmont areas.
The basin was one of the last
habitats of
Przewalski's horse(Equus przewalskii), also known as Dzungarian horse, which was once
extinct in the wild, though it has since been reintroduced in areas of Mongolia and China.
Paleontology
Dzungaria and its derivatives are used to name a number of pre-historic animals,[19] hailing from the rocky outcrops located in the
Dzungar Basin:
A notable find, in February 2006, is the oldest
tyrannosaur fossil unearthed by a team of scientists from
George Washington University who were conducting a study in the Dzungarian Basin. The species, named Guanlong, lived 160 million years ago, more than 90 million years before the famed Tyrannosaurus rex.[citation needed]
^
abWorld Wildlife Fund, ed. (2001).
"Junggar Basin semi-desert". WildWorld Ecoregion Profile. National Geographic Society. Archived from
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