Xing'an Province
Xing'an refers to a former province, which once occupied western Heilongjiang and part of northwest Jilin provinces of China. The name is related to that of the Greater Khingan Mountains. Another name used for this land was Barga, which is also the name used for the western part of the province, the Barga district.
Administration
The capital of Xing'an was the town of Hailar, on the China Eastern Railway line near the Russian border. Xing'an was divided into various sub-prefectures, similar in form to other Manchukuo provinces. The second city of importance was Manzhouli.History
Xing'an province was first created in 1932 as an administrative sub-division of the Japanese-controlled Empire of Manchukuo. From 1939 to 1943, the province was divided into four parts, labeled Xing'an North, Xing'an East, Xing'an South and Xing'an West. These four provinces were reunited into a Xing'an Consolidated Province in 1943. Xing'an at encompassed nearly one third of the land area of Manchukuo.The population of Xing'an, estimated at 965,000 in 1935, was predominantly ethnically Mongol, and Xing'an was therefore administered by a local Mongol prince.
Xing'an was the site of a number of clashes in the Soviet-Japanese Border Wars, most notably the Nomonhan Incident where Japanese Kwantung Army and Manchukuo Imperial Army forces were defeated by the Soviet Red Army in 1939.
After the annexation of Manchukuo by the Republic of China after the end of World War II, the Kuomintang continued to recognize the area as Xing'an Province, with the capital in Hailar. However, under the administration of the People's Republic of China from 1949, the area was annexed to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and is now referred to as the Hulunbuir Prefecture-level city. The population is now estimated to be over 80% ethnic Han Chinese.