Qitai County
| Qitai County 奇台县 • ٿِتَیْ ﺷِﯿًﺎ • گۇچۇڭ ناھىيىسى (Chinese) • (Uyghur) • (Xiao'erjing) |
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.png) Location of Qitai (pink) in Changji Prefecture (yellow) and Xinjiang |
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 Qitai
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| Country | People's Republic of China |
| Region | Xinjiang |
| Autonomous prefecture | Changji |
| Township-level divisions | 6 towns 6 townships 3 ethnic townships |
| County seat | Qitai Town (奇台镇) |
| Area | |
| • Total | 16,641 km2 (6,425 sq mi) |
| Population | |
| • Total | 230,000 |
| • Density | 14/km2 (36/sq mi) |
| Time zone | China Standard (UTC+8) |
| Area code(s) | 0994 |
Qitai County (simplified Chinese: 奇台县; traditional Chinese: 奇台縣; pinyin: Qítái xiàn; Xiao'erjing: ٿِتَیْ ﺷِﯿًﺎ; Uyghur: گۇچۇڭ ناھىيىسى?, ULY: Guchung Nahiyisi, UYY: Guqung Nah̡iyisi), historically known as Gucheng (古城), is a county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China under the administration of the Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture. It covers an area of 16,641 square kilometres (6,425 sq mi) and as of the 2002 census[update] had a population of 230,000.
Qitai County's county seat is in Qitai Town. Gucheng Township is nearby.
Contents
History
Located on one of the main routes of the Silk Road, the old Gucheng (often referred in the European writing of the past as "Ku Ch'eng-tze" etc., using Wade-Giles or Postal Romanization systems), was the western terminal for one of the caravan routes across the Gobi Desert. Owen Lattimore in The Desert Road to Turkestan leaves an account of his travel along this route in 1926-27.[1]
"Under the special circumstances of the caravan trade, camel traffic usually overshoots Hami [“the most easterly point on the arterial cart roads of Chinese Turkestan”], going on all the way to Ku Ch’eng-tze. This is partly because the pastures near Ku Ch’eng-tze are more adequate to caravan needs, but still more because, transport being cheaper by camel than by cart, it is to the advantage of merchants to have their goods carried as far as possible by caravan."[2]
Climate
| Climate data for Qitai County (1971−2000) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Average high °C (°F) | −8.7 (16.3) |
−5.6 (21.9) |
3.5 (38.3) |
17.6 (63.7) |
24.4 (75.9) |
28.7 (83.7) |
30.7 (87.3) |
30.1 (86.2) |
24.1 (75.4) |
14.7 (58.5) |
2.8 (37) |
−6 (21) |
13.0 (55.4) |
| Average low °C (°F) | −23 (−9) |
−20.5 (−4.9) |
−8.9 (16) |
2.7 (36.9) |
8.8 (47.8) |
13.5 (56.3) |
15.4 (59.7) |
13.9 (57) |
8.3 (46.9) |
0.5 (32.9) |
−8.9 (16) |
−18.7 (−1.7) |
−1.4 (29.5) |
| Average precipitation mm (inches) | 5.4 (0.213) |
5.7 (0.224) |
8.4 (0.331) |
19.8 (0.78) |
20.1 (0.791) |
26.8 (1.055) |
29.1 (1.146) |
20.5 (0.807) |
20.1 (0.791) |
17.1 (0.673) |
11.1 (0.437) |
7.9 (0.311) |
192.0 (7.559) |
| Average precipitation days (≥ 0.1 mm) | 6.2 | 5.3 | 5.4 | 6.2 | 6.4 | 7.3 | 8.1 | 6.0 | 5.1 | 4.7 | 6.1 | 6.7 | 73.5 |
| Average relative humidity (%) | 79 | 78 | 73 | 52 | 45 | 49 | 50 | 45 | 49 | 60 | 76 | 80 | 61.3 |
| Mean monthly sunshine hours | 175.3 | 188.9 | 241.2 | 272.5 | 313.4 | 307.0 | 317.1 | 312.1 | 280.5 | 251.0 | 180.0 | 147.9 | 2,986.9 |
| Percent possible sunshine | 61 | 64 | 66 | 68 | 69 | 67 | 68 | 72 | 75 | 74 | 62 | 54 | 67 |
| Source: China Meteorological Administration | |||||||||||||
Transportation
In 2009, the Ürümqi–Dzungaria Railway was constructed through the Jiangjun Gobi desert in the northern part of the county. It terminates at a coal mine in Jiangjunmiao.[3]
The radio telescope project
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In 2012, the officials of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Xinjiang government presided over the groundbreaking at the site of the Xinjiang Qitai Astronomical and Science Education Base.[4] The facility, in Qitai County's Banjiegou Town (半截沟镇), will be the home of the proposed Qitai Radio Telescope.[5] If completed, it will be the largest fully steerable single-dish radio telescope in the world.[6][7]
Footnotes
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- Lattimore, Owen (1929). The Desert Road to Turkestan. Owen Lattimore. Boston, Little, Brown, and Company. Reprinted with new introduction, 1972, AMS Press, New York, N.Y.
- ↑ Lattimore (1929), pp. 52, 250.
- ↑ Lattimore (1929), p. 250.
- ↑ (Chinese) "新疆精伊霍、乌精二线、奎北、乌准4条铁路新线开通运营" (Four new railways enter into service in Xinjiang: the Jinghe-Yining Line, the Ürümqi-Jinghe second track, the Kuitun-Beitun Line, and the Ürümqi–Dzungaria Line) 2009-11-06
- ↑ Groundbreaking Ceremony of Qitai Base
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