Cities: Urumqi | Tulufan

Location: Xinjiang lies in northwest China, bordering on Gansu and Qinghai provinces to the southeast and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the south, sharing a 5,000-km border line with eight countries.

Area: 1,600,000 sq km

Climate: While Xinjiang enjoys between 2,500 to 3,000 hours of sunshine each year, the amount of annual precipitation for the entire region averages a mere 150 milliliters (ml), and thus the air is quite dry.

provincial capital: Urumqi

Population: 16.25 millions (March 2001)

Ethnic groups: Uygur (47.47 %), Han(37.58 %) and Kazak (7.3 %) ethnic groups, as well as the Mongolian, Khirghiz, Xibe, Tajik, Uzbek, Manchu, Daur, Tartar and Russian ethnic groups.