Qinghai (Chinese: 青海, Pinyin: Qīnghǎi) is a province in northwestern China. Large parts of the Qinghai region belong to the Tibetan cultural area; they were the former regions of Amdo and Kham. These eastern Tibetan provinces were incorporated into the Chinese Empire in the 18th century and were not under the rule of the Dalai Lama when western Tibet was liberated.
Qinghai is neighboured to the east by the Chinese provinces of Gansu and Sichuan, to the northwest by Xinjiang and to the southwest by Tibet. The name Qinghai means blue sea, and the region's largest salt lake gave it its name. The two largest Chinese rivers, the Huang He (Yellow River) and the Yangtze, also have their source in the Qinghai region
Xining, capital of the region
Golmud, important stop on the Lhasa
railway.
The province is crossed by the Qinghai-Tibet Highway (N109) and leads to Lhasa in Tibet.
Qinghai borders the provinces of Xinjiang, Gansu, Sichuan and Tibet.
The capital of Qinghai is Xining, which, with 1.68 million
inhabitants, is also the only city in the province with a population of
one million. The city has been considered the gateway to Tibet and
Central Asia for many centuries. Datong and Ge'ermu (Golmud) follow,
each with around 200,000 inhabitants. More than half of the terrain is
at an altitude of 4,000 to 5,000 meters. Agriculture is possible up to
an altitude of 3,200 meters. The northeast part of the Chang Tang, the
Tibetan plateau, is located in the province. The desert region of the
Qaidam Basin is also located here.
Lake Qinghai, located in the
Qaidam Basin, is the largest salt lake in China and supplies not only
salt but also phosphates; there are also mineral resources in the form
of oil, coal and iron ore. Other large lakes are Lake Gyaring and Lake
Ngoring in the headwaters of the Yellow River, Lake Hala in the northern
Qilian Mountains, Donggi Cona, and numerous salt lakes in the eastern
part of the province.
In addition to the Huang He (Yellow River),
the Yangtze River also has its source in eastern Qinghai. The catchment
area of these two rivers has the highest population density in the
otherwise sparsely populated province.
The climate is
continental: dry and cold with long winters and short summers.
Since the end of the Greater Tibetan Empire, which was headed by an
emperor-like ruler, the Tsenpos (btsan po), there was no longer a
unified Tibet across the Tibetan plateau. Eastern Tibet in particular
consisted of a large number of small and medium-sized kingdoms and
regions, some of which were under the Lhasa government of the later
Dalai Lamas, some of which were Chinese provinces, and some of which
were largely independent. Since around 1727, the north of Kham, known as
the Kukunor Territory, and most of Amdo were administered from Xining, a
city that was subordinate to Gansu Province until the early 20th
century.
In 1928, the present-day province of Qinghai emerged
from this administrative area, but from 1912 to 1949 the majority of it
continued to be ruled by Muslim Chinese Hui governors and warlords
(Xibei San Ma) from Gansu instead of by the government of the Chinese
Republic or the Tibetan government in Lhasa.
Hui Muslims had
already risen up against the Chinese central government in 1781-84, and
in 1807 there was an uprising of the Tibetan tribes. The last Muslim
uprising in the region was suppressed by the authorities in October
1993. In 2008, Tibetan unrest briefly spread to Qinghai.
On April
14, 2010, the region was shaken by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake that
killed at least 400 people, injured 8,000, and left many more homeless.
The province of Qinghai consists of a prefecture-level city, a
government district and six autonomous districts. Autonomous districts
are regions in which ethnic minorities (Tibetans and Mongolians in
Qinghai) have more rights to self-government, but are still under the
control of the central government.
The autonomous districts cover
98.9% of the area and are home to 3.5 million inhabitants (59.1%). A
good 96% of the area or 55% of Qinghai's population are part of Tibetan
autonomous regions. However, the largest autonomous district, Haixi, is
administered together with the Mongolian minority who also live there.
Almost a third of the population lives in counties administered by the
Hui. The population figures are based on the 2020 census.
The population is multi-ethnic: the mountainous west is populated by nomads. A good half of the population consists of Han (50.5%), the rest are Tibetans (25.5%), Hui (16%), Tu (4%), Mongolians (1.7%), Tujia (0.2%) and many other smaller ethnic groups (including Manchu, Yi, Salar and Dongxiang). However, the ethnic groups that speak Tibetan dialects do not call themselves Böpa (bod pa), which is the Tibetan term for Tibetans, but Amdowa (a mdo pa) and Khampa (khams pa).
Most Tu and many Mongolians are Lamaist Buddhists like the Tibetans. Hui, Salar and Dongxiang are predominantly Muslims.
Qinghai is actively developing solar and wind energy, information
technology, including big data processing.
Industry
The food
and textile industries are developed, including the production of wool
carpets.
Agriculture
Meat and wool livestock farming are
developed. The Tsaidam Basin is a major center for growing goji berries.
Raw Materials Extraction
CNPC produces natural gas in the Tsaidam
Basin. In addition, Qinghai is an important center for shale oil
production.
Energy
At the beginning of 2021, Qinghai became
the first province in China in which new energy sources took the largest
share in the electric power industry. Electricity generation from solar
and wind power plants amounted to 40.09% of the total, an increase of
43.99% compared with 2019. The power generated by hydroelectric power
plants accounted for 35.27% of Qinghai's total power generation.
As of June 30, 2024, Qinghai's total installed capacity of power grid
was 57.73 million kW, of which clean energy and new energy accounted for
53.84 million kW (93.26%) and 39.74 million kW (68.84%), respectively.
Foreign Trade
In the first half of 2021, Qinghai Province's total
foreign trade was RMB 1.48 billion (approximately US$228.07 million).
Exports increased 64.4% year-on-year to RMB 690 million (approximately
US$106.33 million), while imports increased 2.1 times to RMB 790 million
(approximately US$121.74 million).
In 2009, the climbing world championships took place in Xining, the capital of Qinghai. 219 athletes from 44 nations took part.
The tradition of Hua’er folk songs (flower songs) is maintained in Qinghai and the neighboring provinces of Ningxia and Gansu. There are a variety of popular melodies; the lyrics are often improvised and deal with all themes of life. The focus is on love, but themes of modern life are also sung about in this living tradition. In addition to spontaneous singing at work and in leisure time, Hua’er meetings are also organized. The largest takes place in the summer with hundreds of thousands of visitors. In 2009, Hua'er was added to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The asteroid (2255) Qinghai, discovered on November 3, 1977, has borne the name of the province since 1981.
Railway
In 2006, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway opened, linking Xining
and Lhasa.
Automobile
By the end of 2022, the total length of
highways in Qinghai Province reached 87.7 thousand km, 1,574 km more
than in 2021. In 2022, the volume of road freight transportation in
Qinghai reached 149 million tons, and the freight turnover was 17.526
billion ton-kilometers; the volume of passenger road transportation
reached 7.2 million people, and the passenger turnover was 1.02 billion
passenger-kilometers. The proportion of buses and taxis using new and
environmentally friendly energy sources in the province reached 95.52%
and 79.25%, respectively.
Water
In 2022, the passenger flow of
waterways amounted to 311.2 thousand people, and the passenger turnover
was 2.97 million passenger-kilometers.