Area: 1.66 million square km
Population: 21.59 million
Capital: Urumqi
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, accounting for one sixth of the country's total territory, is the largest of China's provinces and autonomous regions. It also has the longest boundary—at 5,600 km—and borders Mongolia in the northeast, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the west, and Afghanistan, Pakistan and India in the southwest.
Xinjiang is abundant in resources. More than 130 mineral deposits have been found in Xinjiang, with verified reserves of 83 types of those minerals. Xinjiang's oil and natural gas reserves account for 30 percent and 34 percent of the country's land reserves, respectively. Its coal reserves account for 40 percent of the country's total.
Xinjiang is also the country's largest production base of cotton, hops and tomatoes, and is the main base of livestock husbandry and sugar beet planting.
Mineral resource exploitation and agricultural product processing are Xinjiang's pillar industries.
The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) is a subordinate of the dual leadership of the Central Government and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Regional Government. With 14 divisions (reclamation areas), 174 regimental agricultural and stockbreeding farms, 4,391 industrial, construction, transport and commercial enterprises, it's a unique economic and semi-military organization of 2.57 million people. |