Qinghai is an inland province in Northwestern China. It is the largest province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third-smallest population, with its capital and largest city being Xining.
Qinghai borders Gansu on the northeast, Xinjiang on the northwest, Sichuan on the southeast, and the Tibet Autonomous Region on the southwest. Qinghai province was established in 1928 during the period of the Republic of China, and until 1949 was ruled by Hui Chinese Muslim warlords known as the Ma clique. The Chinese name "Qinghai" is after Qinghai Lake, the largest lake in China. In Tibetan, the lake is known as () or ("Blue Lake or Sea"). In English, it is sometimes referred to as Koko Nor, derived from the Classical Mongolian Oirat name for Qinghai Lake, (); the modern Mongolian name is (). Both and Koko Nor are names found in historic documents to describe the region.
Located mostly on the Tibetan Plateau, the province is inhabited by a number of peoples including the Han (concentrated in the provincial capital of Xining, nearby Haidong, and Haixi), Tibetans, Hui, Mongols, Monguors, and Salars. According to the 2021 census reports, Tibetans constitute a fifth of the population of Qinghai and the Hui compose roughly a sixth of the population. There are over 37 recognized ethnic groups among Qinghai's population of 5.6 million, with ethnic minorities making up a total of 49.5% of the population.
The area of Qinghai came under the control of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty around 1724, after their defeat of Khoshut Mongols who previously controlled most of the area. After the Xinhai Revolution and the ensuing fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912, Qinghai came under Chinese Muslim warlord Ma Qi's control until the Northern Expedition by the Republic of China consolidated central control in 1928. In the same year, the province of Qinghai was established by the Nationalist Government, with Xining as its capital.
History
During the Bronze Age, Qinghai was home to a diverse group of nomadic tribes closely related to other Central Asians who traditionally made a living in agriculture and husbandry, the Kayue culture. The eastern part of the area of Qinghai was under the control of the Han dynasty about 2,000 years ago. It was a battleground during the Tang and subsequent Central Plain dynasties when they fought against successive Tibetan tribes.
In the middle of 3rd century CE, nomadic people related to the Mongolic Xianbei migrated to pasture lands around the Qinghai Lake (Koko Nur) and established the Tuyuhun Kingdom.
In the 7th century, the Tuyuhun Kingdom was attacked by both the Tibetan Empire and the Tang dynasty as both sought control over the Silk Road trade routes. Tibetan King Songtsen Gampo was victorious, and settled the area around Tso ngon (Lake Go, or Kokonor Lake). Military conflicts had severely weakened the Tuyuhun kingdom and it was incorporated into the Tibetan Empire. The Tibetan Empire continued expanding beyond Tso ngon during Trisong Detsen's and Ralpacan's reigns, and the empire controlled vast areas north and east of Tso ngon until 848, which included Xi'an.
During the fragmentation of the Tibetan Empire, a series of local polities emerged under the political jostling of Western Xia to the north and Song dynasty to the east – from the military-rule of Guiyi Circuit, to a Tibetan tribal confederacy, and eventually the Tibetan theocratic kingdom of Tsongkha. The Song dynasty eventually defeated the Kokonor kingdom Tsongkha in the 1070s. During the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty's administrative rule of Tibet, the region comprised the headwaters of the Ma chu (Machu River, Yellow River) and the Yalong (Yangtze) rivers and was known as Amdo, but apportioned to different administrative divisions than Tibet proper.
Most of Qinghai was, for a short time in the aftermath of the Yuan dynasty's overthrow, under the control of early Ming dynasty, but later gradually lost to the Khoshut Khanate founded by the Oirats. The Xunhua Salar Autonomous County is where most Salar people live in Qinghai. The Salars migrated to Qinghai from Samarkand in 1370. The chief of the four upper clans around this time was Han Pao-yuan and Ming granted him office of centurion, it was at this time the people of his four clans took Han as their surname. The other chief Han Shan-pa of the four lower Salar clans got the same office from Ming, and his clans were the ones who took Ma as their surname.
From 1640 to 1724, a big part of the area that is now Qinghai was under Khoshut Mongol control, but in 1724 it was conquered by the armies of the Qing dynasty. Xining, the capital of modern Qinghai province, began to function as the administrative center, although the city itself was then part of Gansu province within the "Tibetan frontier district". In 1724, 13-Article for the Effective Governing of Qinghai (Chinese:青海善后事宜十三条) was proposed by Nian Gengyao and adopted by the Central Government to gain full control of Qinghai.
Under the Qing dynasty, the governor was a viceroy of the Emperor, but local ethnic groups enjoyed significant autonomy. Many chiefs retained their traditional authority, participating in local administrations. The Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) devastated the Hui Muslim population of Shaanxi, shifting the Hui center of population to Gansu and Qinghai. In 1928, Qinghai province was created. The Muslim warlord and General Ma Qi became military governor of Qinghai, followed by his brother Ma Lin and then Ma Qi's son Ma Bufang. In 1932 Tibet invaded Qinghai, attempting to capture southern parts of Qinghai province, following contention in Yushu, Qinghai, over a monastery in 1932. The army of Ma Bufang defeated the Tibetan armies. Governor of Qinghai Ma Bufang was described as a socialist by American journalist John Roderick and friendly compared to the other Ma Clique warlords. Ma Bufang was reported to be good humoured and jovial in contrast to the brutal reign of Ma Hongkui. Most of eastern China was ravaged by the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War, by contrast, Qinghai was relatively untouched.
Ma Bufang increased the prominence of the Hui and Salar people in Qinghai's politics by heavily recruiting to his army from the counties in which those ethnic groups predominated.
As the 1949 Chinese revolution approached Qinghai, Ma Bufang abandoned his post and flew to Hong Kong, traveling abroad but never returning to China. On January 1, 1950, the Qinghai Province People's Government was declared, owing its allegiance to the new People's Republic of China. Aside from some minor adjustments to suit the geography, the PRC maintained the province's territorial integrity. Resistance to Communist rule continued in the form of the Huis' Kuomintang Islamic insurgency (1950–58), spreading past traditionally Hui areas to the ethnic-Tibetan south.
The Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve is located in Qinghai and contains the headwaters of the Yellow River, Yangtze River, and Mekong River. The reserve was established to protect the headwaters of these three rivers and consists of 18 subareas, each containing three zones which are managed with differing degrees of strictness.
Qinghai Lake is the largest salt water lake in China, and the second largest in the world. Other large lakes are Lake Hala in the Qilian mountains, lakes Gyaring and Ngoring in the headwater region of the Yellow River, Lake Donggi Cona, and many saline and salt lakes in the western part of the province.
thumb|Yellow River
The Qaidam basin lies in the northwest part of the province at an altitude between 3000 and 5000 meters above sea level. About a third of this resource rich basin is desert.
<gallery widths="200px" heights="140px">
File:Nianbaoyuze Geopark 2015.jpeg|Nyenpo Yurtse, Jigzhi County, Qinghai
File:青海日月山 - panoramio - Tiger@西北 (3).jpg|Riyue Mountain in Qinghai
</gallery>
Climate
alt=Köppen–Geiger climate classification map at 1-km resolution for Qinghai (China) for 1991–2020|thumb|385x385px
The average elevation of Qinghai is approximately 3000 m. Mountain ranges include the Tanggula Mountains and Kunlun Mountains, with the highest point being Bukadaban Feng at 6860 m. Due to the high altitude, Qinghai has quite cold winters (harsh in the highest elevations), mild summers, and a large diurnal temperature variation. Its mean annual temperature is approximately , with January temperatures ranging from and July temperatures ranging from . It is also prone to heavy winds as well as sandstorms from February to April. Significant rainfall occurs mainly in summer, while precipitation is very low in winter and spring, and is generally low enough to keep much of the province semi-arid or arid.
Politics
The politics of Qinghai Province in the People's Republic of China are structured in a one party-government system like all other governing institutions in mainland China.
The Governor of Qinghai is the highest-ranking official in the People's Government of Qinghai. However, in the province's dual party-government governing system, the Governor has less power than the Qinghai Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary.
Administrative divisions
Because the Han form Qinghai's ethnic majority Qinghai is administratively divided into eight prefecture-level divisions: two prefecture-level cities and six autonomous prefectures:
{|class="wikitable" style="margin:1em auto 1em auto; text-align:center"
|+Administrative divisions of Qinghai
|-
|colspan="9" | <div style="position: relative" class="center">
</div>
|-
!! scope="col" rowspan="2"|Division code
!! scope="col" rowspan="2"|Division
!! scope="col" rowspan="2"|Area in km<sup>2</sup>
!! scope="col" rowspan="2"|Population 2010
!! scope="col" rowspan="2"|Seat
!! scope="col" colspan="4"|Divisions
|-
!! scope="col" width="45"|Districts
!! scope="col" width="45"|Counties
!! scope="col" width="45"|Aut. counties
!! scope="col" width="45"|CL cities
|-
! 630000 !! Qinghai Province
|720,000.00||5,626,723||Xining city||7||25||7||5
|-
! 630100 !! Xining city
|7,424.11||2,208,708||Chengzhong District||5||1||1||bgcolor="grey"|
|-
! 630200 !! Haidong city
|13,043.99||1,396,845||Ledu District||2||bgcolor="grey"| ||4||bgcolor="grey"|
|-
! 632200 !! Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
|33,349.99||273,304||Haiyan County||bgcolor="grey"| ||3||1||bgcolor="grey"|
|-
! 632300 !! Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
|17,908.89||256,716||Tongren city||bgcolor="grey"| ||2||1||1
|-
! 632500 !! Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
|43,377.11||441,691||Gonghe County||bgcolor="grey"| ||5||bgcolor="grey"| ||bgcolor="grey"|
|-
! 632600 !! Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
|76,442.38||181,682||Maqên County||bgcolor="grey"| ||6||bgcolor="grey"| ||bgcolor="grey"|
|-
! 632700 !! Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
|197,953.70||378,439||Yushu city||bgcolor="grey"| ||5||bgcolor="grey"| ||1
|-
! 632800 !! Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture
|300,854.48||489,338||Delingha city||bgcolor="grey"| ||3||bgcolor="grey"| ||3
|}
{|class="wikitable sortable collapsible collapsed" style="width:auto; text-align:center; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"
! colspan="5"|Administrative divisions in Chinese and varieties of romanizations
|-
! English !! Chinese !! Pinyin
|-
|Qinghai Province||||Qīnghǎi Shěng
|-
|Xining city||||Xīníng Shì
|-
|Haidong city||||Hǎidōng Shì
|-
|Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture||||Hǎiběi Zàngzú Zìzhìzhōu
|-
|Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture||||Huángnán Zàngzú Zìzhìzhōu
|-
|Hainan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture||||Hǎinán Zàngzú Zìzhìzhōu
|-
|Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture||||Guǒluò Zàngzú Zìzhìzhōu
|-
|Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture||||Yùshù Zàngzú Zìzhìzhōu
|-
|Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture||||Hǎixī Měnggǔzú Zàngzú Zìzhìzhōu
|}
The eight prefecture-level divisions of Qinghai are subdivided into 44 county-level divisions (6 districts, 4 county-level cities, 27 counties and 7 autonomous counties).
{| class="wikitable sortable collapsible"
|+ Population by urban areas of prefecture & county cities
|-
! # !! Cities !! style="background-color: #aaaaff;"| 2020 Urban area !! style="background-color: #aaaaff;"| 2010 Urban area !! style="background-color: #ffaaaa;" | 2020 City proper
|-
|1||Xining||1,677,177||1,153,417||2,467,965
|-
|2||Haidong||204,784||bgcolor="lightgrey"|||1,358,471
|-
|3||Golmud||197,153||156,779||
|-
|4||Yushu||85,497||bgcolor="lightgrey"|||
|-
|5||Delingha||65,424||54,844||
|- bgcolor="lightyellow"
|(6)||Tongren||49,962||bgcolor="lightgrey"| ||
|-
|7||Mangnai||18,856||bgcolor="lightgrey"|||
|}
Demographics
Ethnicity
There are over 37 recognized ethnic groups among Qinghai's population of 5.6 million, with Han population standing at 50.5% of the total population and ethnic minorities making up 49.5% of the population. In 2010, Tibetan population stood at 20.7%, Hui 16%, Tu (Monguor) 4%, with also some groups of Mongol, and Salar, all of those groups being the most populous in the province. Han Chinese predominate in the cities of Xining, Haidong, Delingha and Golmud, and elsewhere in the northeast. The Hui are concentrated in Xining, Haidong, Minhe County, Hualong County, and Datong County. The Tu people predominate in Huzhu County and the Salars in Xunhua County; Tibetans and Mongols are sparsely distributed across the rural western part of the province.