Golmud


Golmud, also [|known by various other romanizations], is a county-level city in the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, China. It is now the second-largest city in Qinghai and the third largest in the Tibetan Plateau. The population is now about 205,700.

Name

Golmud is a romanization of a Mongolian word meaning "rivers". Ge'ermu is the pinyin romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of the same name's transcription into Chinese characters; it is sometimes misspelled Geermu. Ko-erh-mu was the same name romanized using the Wade–Giles system; Golmot was the romanization used by the Chinese Postal Map. The Wylie romanization of the Tibetan form of the name is Nagormo.

Geography

Golmud is part of Haixi Prefecture in western Qinghai Province. Despite being nominally a "city", the built-up urban area of Golmud comprises only of the county's. Most of the county lies in the southern Qaidam Basin and in the foothills of the Kunlun Mountains. A large southern exclave is administered as the "town" of Tanggula, separated from the rest of the county by the western panhandle of the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. The northern part borders Xinjiang to its northeast; the southern exclave borders the Tibetan Autonomous Region to its southwest.
Golmud proper is at an elevation of. It grew up alongside the Golmud River, which gave it its name.
North of Golmud is the Qarhan Playa, a salt flat with about ten perennial salt lakes. The largest is Dabusun Lake, which receives the waters of the Golmud. The more important smaller lakes are Suli, South Suli, Dabiele, Xiaobiele, Tuanjie, Xiezuo, Dongling, and North and South Hulsan, which receive the waters of smaller inflowing streams. Qarhan is part of the larger Sanhu Depression, which includes East and West Taijinar Lakes. Other major lakes in the southern exclave of Golmud include Ulan Ul and Migriggyangzham Co.

Climate

Golmud has a cold arid climate, with long, cold winters, and warm summers. The monthly 24-hour average temperature drops to in January and rises to in July, while the annual mean is. Precipitation is very low, totaling only per annum, falling on 28 days, most of which are during the summer. Relative humidity averages only 32%, with all months below 40%, some of the lowest levels nationally. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 62% in July to 81% in November, the city receives 3,096 hours of bright sunshine annually.

History

Scientific exploration of the mineral resources of Qarhan were undertaken in the 1950s, leading to the discovery of the area's potash and gas fields. Systematic surveying was undertaken in the 1960s and 1970s, with the railway permitting industrial exploitation from the 1980s. The first oil pipeline and potassium fertilizer factory were opened in 1989. The Golmud Kunlun Economic Development Zone was opened in 1992. In 2004, a second pipeline arrived. In the 2010s, an influx of further investment followed realization of the importance of the Sanhu's supplies of lithium and rare earths for modern personal electronics and electric cars.

Administrative divisions

Subdistricts:
Towns:
Townships:
In 2017, the population of the total area of Golmud was approximately 240,494, with ethnic Han Chinese comprising 69.82% and minority ethnic groups comprising 30.18%.

Economy

The Qarhan Playa has China's largest reserves of salt, potassium, and magnesium, as well as other valuable minerals. Taken together, the mineral resources in the playa were estimated to be worth over 15 trillion RMB. The area's salt has also trapped valuable hydrocarbons. The Sebei-1 and Sebei-2 fields near Suli Lake are also China's 4th-largest onshore reserves of natural gas and the entire area may have reserves as high as 1 trillion m³. The larger Sanhu Depression includes East and West Taijinar, which hold China's largest reserves of lithium.
The surrounding countryside also produces gold, copper, jade, lead, and zinc.
A pipeline delivers crude oil from Huatugou Oilfield to a refinery at Golmud. The refinery has a capacity of 1 million metric tons a year; is able to produce 100,000 metric tons a year of methanol and 20,000 MT/yr of polypropylene; and has a 100,000 MT/yr gas fractionator.
Statistics for 2001 show that the city's nominal GDP totalled 2.213 billion RMB, a rise of 31.9% from the previous year and the highest growth rate since 1990.

Transportation

Railway

Golmud lies along the Qinghai–Tibet Railway, a railway that starts from Xining and ends at Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The Golmud-Lhasa section, with a length of, was the last and most challenging part of the railway to be completed. After five years of construction, the first train for Lhasa left Golmud on 1 July 2006.
In October 2012 construction started on the Golmud–Dunhuang Railway. It will actually branch off the Qinghai–Tibet Railway at the Yinmaxia station north of Golmud, and will cross the Qaidam Basin and the Altyn-Tagh/Qilian system on the way to Dunhuang in the neighboring Gansu province.
A planned Golmud-Korla Railway running north west from Golmud into Korla, Xinjiang began construction in November 2014.

Highways

The Golmud Railway is featured as an online multiplayer map in the video game Battlefield 4.

Citations