Qitai County

Qitai County
奇台县ٿِتَیْ ﺷِﯿًﺎگۇچۇڭ ناھىيىسى
(Chinese) • (Uyghur) • (Xiao'erjing)
County

Location of Qitai (pink) in Changji Prefecture (yellow) and Xinjiang
Qitai

Location in Xinjiang

Coordinates: 44°01′N 89°35′E / 44.017°N 89.583°E / 44.017; 89.583Coordinates: 44°01′N 89°35′E / 44.017°N 89.583°E / 44.017; 89.583
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, Гучуң Наһийиси, 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 had a population of 230,000.

Qitai County's county seat is in Qitai Town. Gucheng Township is nearby.

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

Main article: Qitai Radio Telescope

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]

See also

Footnotes

  1. Lattimore (1929), pp. 52, 250.
  2. Lattimore (1929), p. 250.
  3. (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
  4. Groundbreaking Ceremony of Qitai Base
  5. "QTT Project Proposal". Proceeds of the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory. 2012.
  6. "QTT Specification". QTT International Advisory Workshop. Retrieved 2013-04-08.
  7. Na, Wang (May 2013). QiTai Radio Telescope. The Second China-U.S. Workshop on Radio Astronomy Science and Technology. Retrieved 11 July 2013.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, May 04, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.