Location and Area
Kashi Prefecture, 141,600 square kilometers in total area in the southern part of Xinjiang, is contiguous with the Taklimakan Desert on its east and borders Russia, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kirghizia, Pakistan to its west and southwest respectively.
The city of Kashi, a place of strategic importance in south Xinjiang, has an area of fifteen square kilometers with an average elevation of 1289.5 meters. The city lies 1,473 kilometers from the city of Urumqi.
History
Kashi, short of Kashgar, was called Shule in ancient times and has a history of more than two thousand years. According to the record of the Persian Epic, Afulabuseyav, an ancient Tulan hero, established the capital of his kingdom here.
In the beginning of the Han Dynasty, it belonged to the Zhuangpu Prefectural General’s Office of the Hun. In the latter half of the second century B.C., after the Han Dynasty Emperor Wudi sent Zhang Qian as his special envoy to the Western Region, Kashi submitted to the authorities of the Western Han Dynasty.
During the first century, Kashi was the supreme headquarters of Ban Chao, an imperial general who administered the Western Region. But at the end of the Sui Dynasty and at the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Kashi had to pay taxes and levies frequently to the Western Turkish Khanate.
During the reign of the Tang Dynasty Emperor Taizong and afterwards, it was an important military stronghold of the Tang government. Kashgar was one of the four important towns in Anxi at that time, thus it was made the seat of the Shule Superintendents Office. The Karakhanid Dynasty also established its capital in Kashgar.
Before Genghis Khan went on his expedition, Kashgar was the south capital of the Western Liao Regime established by Khitans. After Khan’s western expedition was over, Kashgar became the reign of crown prince of Chagatai. During the reign of Qing Dynasty, Kashi became the seat of government of the Kashgar Councillor of the Qing government.
Population and Nationalities
Kashi Prefecture has a population of 2.3 million, of which the Uygur nationality comprises 92.92%, the Han 5.6% and the Tajik 1.03%, with the other 0.45% made up of Hui, Kirgiz, Ozbek, Kazak, Manchu, Xibe, Mongol, Tartar and Daur nationalities.
The city of Kashi has a population of 200,000, 74.62% of which are Uygur and 24.32% of which are Han.
Administration Divisions
Kashi Prefecture has one city (Kashi) and eleven counties (Shufu, Shule, Yengisar, Yuepuhu, Jiashi, Shache, Zepu, Yecheng, Markit, Bachu and the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County) under its jurisdiction. Under jurisdiction of the city and counties there are twenty-six towns and sub district offices, 134 townships, 2,310 villagers’ committees and ninety-six neighborhood committees.
The city Kashi is the seat of the Kashi Prefectural Committee of the Communist Party of China and the administrative office of the prefecture. The urban district of Kashi has four subdistrict offices, thirty-eight neighborhood committees; its suburbs have three townships, thirty-nine villagers’ committees as well as two farms under the city’s jurisdiction.
Climate and Natural Resources
Kashi Prefecture is located in the temperate zone of a continental climate. The climate in this area varies greatly because of the varied topography. Specifically, the Kashi Prefecture can be divided into zones of plain climate, desert climate, mountain climate, the Pamir Plateau climate and the Kunlun Mountain climate.
Located in the plain climate zone with the clear four seasons, Kashi has a long summer and a short winter. The annual mean temperature in Kashi is 11.7°C, with the lowest temperature of -24.4°C in January and the hottest 40.1°C in July. The frost-free period averages 215 days. The annual mean precipitation is 27 millimeters.
Mineral resources in the prefecture include coal, mica, asbestos, gypsum, limestone, natural sulphur, vanadium, titanium, iron, copper, zinc, nickel, phosphorus, beryllium, white marble and so on. Oil deposits, in particular, are considerably large and dozens of oil wells have been drilled in Yecheng County in the last few years.
Flora resources in the prefecture include mountain vegetation, plain vegetation, oasis vegetation, desert vegetation and marshland vegetation. The proportion of forested land is 1.7% with 94,667 hectares of natural forested land. The variety of trees in the area is wide, including such species as poplar, willow, mulberry, narrow-leaved oleaster, Chinese scholar tree, Chinese parasol, pine, China fir, cypress, diversiform-leaved poplar and red willow.
Economy
The industry of Kashi Prefecture was developed only after liberation. Now, various industrial systems have been completed, including system of coal, electric power, cement, building materials, chemistry, farming machinery, textile, leather products, ceramics, paper-making and food processing industries. The Kashi Cotton Printing and Dyeing Mill, the Kashi Cement Plant, the Kashi Coal Mine and the hydropower station are the key industrial enterprises of the prefecture.
The highway network, with the city of Kashi as the hub, has five main highways with a total length of 1,184 kilometers. Starting from Yecheng, one can get to Hotan along the highway running east and reach Ali in Tibet along the highway running up the Kunlun Mountains to the south. The highway from Kashi to Taxkorgan via Shufu, called the Sino-Pakistan International Highway (the section on China’s side being 420.6 kilometers long), extends into Pakistan from the Shuibulang Valley. Both the highways starting from Kashi to Smuhana via Wuqia County and to Turgat lead to the Sino-Soviet border.
Kashi Prefecture has 415,620 hectares of cultivated land, 1.33 million hectares of reclaimable land and 2.26 million hectares of pastureland, of which 239,467 hectares is first rate. The content of organic substances of the soil generally ranges from 0.5 to 10 percent. Wheat, maize and cotton are the main crops grown here. Also grown here are rice, barley, highland barley, rape, sesame peanuts and flax.
Scenic Spots
The Id Kah Mosque
The Id Kah Mosque, a grand Islamic structure located in the center of the city of Kashi, has a history of more than five hundred years. Shakesimirzha, the ruler of Kashgar, had the mosque built here first in 1442, where he would say prayers to the souls of his deceased relatives. Extended and renovated time and again through the ages, it has finally reached its present shape and size.
The mosque, 140 meters long from south to north and 120 meters from east to west, covers an area of 16,800 square meters and consists of the Hall of Prayer, the Doctrine-Teaching Hall, the gate tower, a pond and some other auxiliary structures. The gate of the mosque, built of yellow bricks with the joints of the brickwork pointed with gypsum, has distinct lines. On both sides of the gate are eighteen-meter high round brick columns half embedded in the wall. On top of the columns stands a tower where the imam would call out loudly at dawn every day to wake up the Muslims and summon them to attend service in the mosque.
In the tree-graced courtyard, there is a pond, and on its bank many pottery pots are placed, which are to be used by the Islam believers to clean their bodies. The main hall with wide eaves is 160 meters long and sixteen meters wide. The hall’s ceiling, with fine wooden carving and colorful flower-and plant painting patterns, is supported by one hundred carved wooden columns. In the middle part of the wall in the main hall, there is a deep shrine in which a stepped throne is placed. During service, the first Maola stands in the shrine to lead the prayer. After entering the main hall, the followers would seat themselves facing west both inside and out, in proper lines.
The Apak Hoja Tomb
The Apak Hoja Tomb, five kilometers northeast of the city of Kashi, is an important cultural unit protected by the Autonomous Region. As a tomb of the descendants of an Islamic sage, it was built around 1640. The legend has it that seventy-two persons in all of five generations of the same family were buried in the tomb.
The first generation buried here was Yusuf Hoja, a celebrated Islamic missionary. After he died, his oldest son Apak Hoja carried on the missionary work and became the leader of the famous Islamic faction of Baishan during the seventeenth century which seized the power of the Yarkant Court for a time. Apak Hoja died in 1693 and was buried in the tomb. His reputation was greater than his father’s, so the tomb was renamed “The Apak Hoja Tomb”.
The tomb is a group of beautiful and magnificent buildings including the Tombs Hall, the Doctrine-Teaching Hall, the Great Hall of Prayer, the gate tower, a pond and orchard.
The Tombs Hall, with a dome shaped top of seventeen meters in diameter and covered with green glazed tiles outside, is twenty-six meters high and thirty-nine meters long at the base. The hall is high, spacious and columnless. Inside the hall, there is a high terrace on which the tombs are arranged. All the tombs are built of glazed bricks with very beautiful patterns of blue flowers on a white background, glittering, simple and elegant.
The Great Hall of Prayer in the west part of the tomb. Ayitijiayi by name, is the place where the Muslim believers conduct service on big days. The Lesser Hall of Prayer and the gate tower are outmost buildings decorated with colorful paintings and elegant brick carvings.
Outside the tomb there is a crystal-clear pond lined by tall tree making the place pleasantly quite and beautiful.
The legend goes that among the Hoja descendants buried here, there was a lady, Yiparhan by name, who was one of the concubines of the Qing Dynasty Emperor Qianlong. She was called Xinagfei (Fragrant Imperial Concubine) because of the rich delicate fragrance of flower sent forth by her body. After she died, her remains were escorted back to Kashi by her sister-in-law Sudexiang and were buried in the Apak Hoja Tomb.
So, some people call the tomb “the tomb of Xinagfei”. But according to textual research, Xiangfei was none other than Rongfei, a concubine of Emperor Qianlong, and she was actually buried in the East Tombs of the Qing Dynasty in Zunhua County, Hebei Province after she died.
The Yusfu Has Hajip Tomb
The Yusuf Has Hajip Tomb is located on the campus of the Kashi Number 12 primary school. Yusuf Has Hajip, an Uygur poet, scholar and thinker, was born in Husiwurdui (Balashagun) in Karakhanid Dynasty, and later immigrated to Kashgar. He wrote the long narrative philosophic poem Kuladku Bilig (The Knowledge of Happiness). After he died, he was buried in Badige, outside the city of Kashgar. His tomb was moved to its present site when it was threatened by the flooding of the Toman River.
The Mahmud Kashgari Tomb
The Mahmud Kashgari Tomb, located in the Wupar Village, Shufu County, is offset with trees and bushes. Mahmud Kashgari was born into an aristocratic family of The Karakhnid Dynasty in the eleventh century. An outstanding Uygur scholar and linguist, Mahmud compiled the Complete Turkish Dictionary. His tomb is highly respected by the Uygur people and many Islamic scholars have contributed their favorite books to the tombs; it has thus slowly become a kind of library, and people respectfully call it Haiziliti Maolamu, meaning the tomb of honorable scholars.
Ancient Hanoi City and the Mor Buddhist Pagoda
Thirty kilometers northeast of Kashi stands the ruined adobe-walled city of Hanoi, which lies in an area three kilometers long and one kilometer wide. According to textual research, the city is 1,500 years old.
A few kilometers north of the ancient city is the site of the Mor Buddhist Pagoda has three-square layers, each a little smaller than the one below it. The bottom layer has a circumference of more than forty-eight meters, the second layer forty meters and the third layer thirty-two meters, while the pagoda stands more than twelve meters high.
The platform beside the pagoda was one of the central temple structures, and in its sidewalls were carved niches housing Buddha figurines. But now there are no figurines left, and even the niches themselves are barely visible.
The Grand Bazaar
Grand Bazaar, in Uygur means “farm trade market”. The bazaar in Kashi is the biggest one in Xinjiang. As early as two thousand years ago, it was the collecting and distributing center of goods. Nowadays, it has become even more busy. On bazaar day every Sunday, the traffic gets heavy on every road with crowds upon crowds of market-goers coming in from all directions.
In the bazaar there is just about everything you would expect to find, such as various special local products, handicrafts, articles of daily use, fruits and vegetables as well as means of production and all kinds of domestic animals. Riding donkeys or driving carts, farmers from the suburbs get downtown by early morning. It is really a scene of prosperity with cheerful laughter and buying and selling everywhere.
Boshikelamu Orchard
Kashi has always enjoyed the reputation of being a “Land of Fruits and Melons”, with Boshikelamu ranking first in the area. Among the great variety of fruits in Boshikelamu, the apricot alone has more than twenty strains, and grape, apple and pear have nearly twenty strains each. Also there are many strains of cherry, plum, peach, quince, date and so on.
Each of the fruits has early, middle and late ripening varieties. In May, the white, sweet and tasty mulberries ripen and, from then on, apricot, cherry, fig, sweet-kernel peach, jasper peach, flat peach, pear, apple, grape, pomegranate and pistachio and badam, the high-valued dry nut fruits in China, ripen one after another. The fruit harvest does not end until the beginning of November.
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