Brief Introduction To Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region

    General Description: This autonomous region with a large Muslim population is situated on the upper reaches of the Yellow River in Northwest China. The regional capital is Yinchuan, a city with many monsques on the lanzhou-Baotou Railway.

    The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, established on Oct. 25, 1958, covers an area of 51,800 sq km inhabited by 4,953,000 people, 1,642,000 or 33% of whom are Hui people who are descendants of emigrants came from the Middle East to China at the beginning of the 13th century.

    The region is 1, 200 km from the sea has a typical continental   climate with summer temperature rising to as high as 39 degrees Centigrade and winter temperature plummeting to as low as 30 degrees below zero.  The day\night temperature variation in summer is 17 degrees -- good for crops to synthesize starch or sugar.

   Climate: climate with summer temperature rising to as high as 39 degrees Centigrade and winter temperature plummeting to as low as 30 degrees below zero. The day\night temperature variation in summer is 17 degrees

   Provincial capital: Yinchuan

   Population: 5.62 millions (March 2001)

   Ethnicity: There are 3.68 million Han people, accounting for 65.47 percent of Ningxia¡¯s total population. Ningxia is home to 33 ethnic minority groups which have a total population of 1.94 million. Of this figure, the Hui people amount to 1.90 million, accounting for 33.88 percent of the region¡¯s total population. Most of the Huis live in Tongxin, Guyuan, Xiji, Haiyuan, and Jingyuan counties as well as Wuzhong City and Lingwu County in the area irrigated with water diverted from the Huanghe River.

    Resources: Petroleum, natural gas, phosphorus, gold and other minerals have been discovered in the autonomous region.  But Ningxia's biggest asset is its huge reserves of coal, which has been verified at 30.5 billion tons.

   Coal is mined to fuel thermal plants to power steel and aluminum works and factories turning out chemical fertilizers and many other products.

   Of the ten kinds of coal, nine can be found in Ningxia, such as lignite, coking coal, anthracite, etc. The proved reserves is 30,800 million tons and the estimated reserves are nearly 200,000 million tons, ranking Ningxia fifth in the whole country. "Taisi Coal" produced in Rujigou Mine is the best anthracite, and it is exported to many countries in Asia and Europe.

    Agriculture: Although Ningxia is situated on the northwest loess highland, the Yellow River flows through a vast area of its land. Among its 66.4 thousand square kilometer of landmass, 8 thousand benefit from the Yellow River. There are 11.86 million mu (15 mu equals one hectare) of cultivated lands, over 2 mu per capita, and 3.6 million mu are paddy fields, more than one mu for each agricultural persoon. Yet, there are still 610 thousand hectares of wasteland good for agriculture that haven't been reclaimed.

    Industry: ndustry in Ningxia is developing very fast. Many industrial enterprises have established. They consist of coal, electric power, metal working,petroleum, machinery, chemical, building materials, textile, synthetic fabrics, medical, plastic, daily silicate, sugar, electron, meter,leather, paper, cigarette, and foodstuff. All these form a comparatively full system of industry.