Aksu Prefecture


Aksu Prefecture is located in mid-Western Xinjiang, People's Republic of China. It has an area of and 2.37 million inhabitants at the 2010 census whom 535,657 lived in the built-up area made up of Aksu urban district. The name Aksu is Turkic for 'white water'. Aksu Prefecture has a long international boundary with Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Etymology

The name Aksu is Turkic for 'white water'. The name is similar to that of the nearby Zhetysu region which means "seven rivers". The name of Aksu Prefecutre's Onsu County means "ten water" in Uyghur and other Turkic languages- all three names consist of a descriptor followed by 'su'.

History

In 717 AD, the Arabs, guided by their Turgesh allies, besieged Buat-ɦuɑn and Dai-dʑiᴇk-dʑiᴇŋ in the Battle of Aksu.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, 214 Uyghur workers were sent to Jiujiang, Jiangxi.

Geography

The prefecture occupies the northwestern part of the Tarim Basin and the southern slopes of the Tian Shan. The southern part of the prefecture is within the Taklamakan desert. Agriculture is only possible in the areas irrigated by the Tarim River and its glacier-fed tributaries, the Aksu River and the Muzart River. Aksu Prefecture surrounds Aral, Xinjiang.

Administrative divisions

Aksu Prefecture is divided into 2 county-level cities and 8 counties:

Demographics

Of its 2.53 million inhabitants, 80.1% are Uyghur, 18.42% are Han, with the remainder belonging to other ethnicities.
As of 2015, 2,030,600 of the 2,530,506 residents of the county were Uyghur, 465,983 were Han Chinese and 33,923 were from other ethnic groups.
As of 1999, 74.99% of the population of Aksu Prefecture was Uyghur and 23.74% of the population was Han Chinese.