Ürümqi
Ürümqi is the capital and largest city of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwestern China. With a census population of 4 million in 2020, Ürümqi is the second-largest city in China's northwestern interior after Xi'an, and the second-largest in Central Asia in terms of population, after Kabul, Afghanistan. Ürümqi has seen significant economic development since the 1990s and currently serves as a regional transport node and a cultural, political and commercial center.
Etymology
According to Herold J Wiens, the name "Ürümqi" comes from the Oirat words and, together meaning "beautiful pasture".Japanese Turkologist Dai Matsui proposes that the name "Ürümqi" may have originated from the Old Uyghur word yürüng, combined with the Chinese element chin. Matsui notes that during the Tang dynasty, there was a garrison called Baishuizhen along the route from Turpan toward the area of present-day Ürümqi. In this context, the Chinese bai could correspond to the Uyghur yürüng with the same meaning, while zhen was rendered as chin. Thus, an Old Uyghur toponym "Yürüng-chin" could have developed, which over time evolved into the modern form Ürümchi / Ürümqi. As further evidence supporting this hypothesis, Matsui points to Old Uyghur documents from the 14th century in which the toponym "Yürüng-chin" is attested.
The Qing dynasty took Ürümqi in 1755, during its conquest of the Dzungar Khanate. Qing people expanded the town into a walled city from 1763 to 1767, and upon completing the expansion renamed the city Dihua, meaning "to enlighten and civilize".
The Chinese Communist Party restored the name "Ürümqi" on 1 February 1954, believing Dihua to be a belittling and ethnically chauvinist name.
History
Early period
During prehistory, the site of the future Ürümqi was occupied by a nomadic people known in Chinese accounts as the Jushi, who lived mainly on the northern slopes of the surrounding Tianshan Mountains. The Jushi are often regarded as likely precursors of the Tocharian peoples, who later established city states in the Tarim Basin, south of the present site of Ürümqi.The oldest known settlement, a town called Urabo, was located about from the southern suburbs of the present-day Ürümqi.
Han Chinese states, located to the east, exerted increasing control of the Tarim Basin. Under the name Luntai, the city was founded by the Tang government, in 648 CE, the 22nd year of Emperor Taizong's reign, as part of the Protectorate General to Pacify the West. It was a seat of local government and collected taxes from the caravans along the northern route of the Silk Road.
After the Tang retreated from the Western Regions, the region came under the control of the Uyghurs of the Khaganate and Gaochang / Qocho. There is little information about the Ürümqi area during the time between the Tang and Qing dynasties, and researchers generally believe that there were no permanent settlements there for most of this period. However, based on his analysis of Old Uyghur and Mongolian documents, Japanese Turkologist Dai Matsui argues that the area may have been used as a winter residence by Uyghur and Moghul khans such as Tughlugh Timur. The Mongols referred to the wider area as Bishbalik, meaning five cities, a reference to the five towns that surrounded the present-day Ürümqi area.
Dzungar period
The Oirat-speaking Dzungar tribes that formed the Dzungar Khanate were the last major power to control Ürümqi before the Manchus gained control of Xinjiang. During the Ming dynasty, there was a record of a place at Jiujiawan to the west of present Ürümqi, which may have been the Dzungar town that was later destroyed during the Qing conquest. The Mongolians also used the area as herding ground in this period. Steppe peoples had used the location, the pass between the Bogda Shan to the east and the Tian Shan to the west, connecting the Dzungar Basin to the north and the Turpan Depression to the south.Ürümqi remained a small town of lesser importance than the oasis and Silk Road trade center Turpan to the southeast. Fighting for the control of Dzungaria led to the Khoshuuts leaving Ürümqi for Qinghai and Tibet in the 1620s and 1630s. The Uyghurs were introduced into the Ürümqi area in the 18th century by the Dzungars who moved them from the west Tarim region to be taranchis or farmers in Ürümqi.
Qing rule
In the 18th century, the Qing went to war against the Dzungar Khanate. Ürümqi was taken by the Qing in 1755, and the Dzungars of the region were eliminated in the Dzungar genocide. One writer, Wei Yuan, described the resulting desolation in what became northern Xinjiang as "an empty plain for a thousand li, with no trace of man". A fort was built, and the Qing then established garrisons of Manchu and Mongol bannermen and Han Chinese troops at Ürümqi. After 1759, the Qing government established state farms in the under-populated areas around Ürümqi, where there was fertile, well-watered land. Manchu soldiers also constructed a temple with red walls dedicated to Guandi on Pingding mountain overlooking Ürümqi, which gave Ürümqi the nickname "Red Temple".The Manchus began to construct a walled city in 1763 to the south of the first fort, and it was completed in 1767. The Qianlong Emperor named the new settlement "Dihua", meaning "to enlighten and civilize". In 1771, another city named Gongning Cheng was built nearby to the northwest to house Manchu bannermen, and this would become the seat of government. The bannermen settlement to the west was commonly referred to as "Mancheng", while Dihua to the east became a Han Chinese town commonly called "Hancheng". The Ürümqi of the early period was therefore a twin-city, with Gongning Cheng forming the administrative center while Dihua grew into Xinjiang's commercial and financial center.
Han Chinese from all over China moved into Dihua, as did Chinese Hui Muslims from the areas of Gansu and Shaanxi. The origin of Hui in Ürümqi is often indicated by the names of their mosques. By 1762, more than 500 shops had already been opened by Chinese migrants to the area of modern-day Ürümqi. Those Qing literati who visited Dihua were impressed by its cultural sophistication and similarity to eastern China. The writer Ji Yun compared Dihua to Beijing, in that both had numerous wine shops which offered daily performances of Chinese music and dance.
In 1870, the Battle of Ürümqi took place between the Turkic Muslim forces of Yaqub Beg against the Dungan Muslim forces of Tuo Ming. With the help of Xu Xuegong's Han Chinese militia, Yaqub Beg's forces defeated the Dungans. Gongning Cheng was captured, its Qing administrator killed, and the city burnt to the ground and abandoned. The Qing later regained control of Ürümqi. In 1884, the Guangxu Emperor established Xinjiang as a province, with Dihua as its capital.
Republican era
After the collapse of the Qing dynasty, Xinjiang was ruled from Ürümqi by a succession of warlords: Yang Zengxin, Jin Shuren, Sheng Shicai, and Zhang Zhizhong as governor of Xinjiang. Of these, Yang and Sheng were considered capable rulers.During the Kumul Rebellion, the First Battle of Ürümqi and the Second Battle of Ürümqi took place between the forces of Ma Zhongying's 36th Division and Jin Shuren and Sheng Shicai's provincial forces. At the second battle, Ma was assisted by the Han Chinese General Zhang Peiyuan.
People's Republic era
On 1 February 1954, following the founding of the People's Republic of China, the city's name was officially changed back to Ürümqi. The ruling Chinese Communist Party believed that the name "Dihua", which literally means "to enlighten and civilize", was belittling and ethnically chauvinist.Ürümqi became the de facto political and economic capital of Xinjiang in 1962, following protests against Chinese rule in the previous capital Yining. In what came to be known as the Yi–Ta incident, 60,000 Chinese citizens left Yining and Tacheng for the Soviet Union, prompting the Chinese government to move its administrative buildings and industrial focus from Yining to Ürümqi. The Chinese government also began construction on a railway connecting Ürümqi to China proper in the east. As a result, Xinjiang was culturally and economically reoriented away from Central Asia and toward China proper.
In the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping relaxed China's tight control over Xinjiang, and Ürümqi benefited from the development of the oil and gas industry in Xinjiang.
New mosques were built in Ürümqi with financial assistance from the Chinese government. While the Chinese government implemented strict rules on religion in southern Xinjiang, the treatment of the Uyghurs and their religion in Ürümqi were more lax and permissive.
In May 1989, unrest in Ürümqi resulted in 150 injuries. In February 1997, bombings in Ürümqi following the Ghulja incident resulted in 20 deaths and scores of injuries.
July 2009 riots and subsequent unrest
In the largest eruption of ethnic violence in China in decades, there were riots in July 2009 between ethnic Han Chinese and Uyghurs. The New York Times reporter covering the riot described the violence as "clashes with riot police and Uyghurs rampaging through the city and killing Han civilians. Then, for at least three days, bands of Han vigilantes roamed Ürümqi, attacking and killing Uyghurs." Before the riot broke out, young Uyghurs had marched through the city "to protest a case of judicial discrimination". According to official figures, most of the 197 killed in the riot were Han, a statement which New York Times reporter Edward Wong says is disputed by Uyghurs.Geography
The largest city in western China, Ürümqi has earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the most remote city from any sea in the world. It is about from the nearest coastline as Ürümqi is the closest major city to the Eurasian pole of inaccessibility, although Karamay and Altay, both in Xinjiang, are closer. The city has an administrative area of and has an average elevation of.The location in the southwestern suburbs of Ürümqi was designated by local geography experts as the "center point of Asia" in 1992, and a monument to this effect was erected there in the 1990s. The site is a local tourist attraction.