Yining & Khorgas 伊宁·霍尔果斯

1

A Uyghur and Uzbek quarter of Yining's old town, named after its blacksmith workshops ("Kazanqi" means pot casters), with stretches of blue walls, wooden doors and colorful courtyards; visitors call it "the Morocco of China"

2

A hexagonal, radial street district laid out to a German designer's plan in the 1930s, with six streets radiating from the central square in six directions; multiple ethnic groups have lived side by side here for nearly a century

3

The mother river of the Ili Valley: the Ili River Bridge south of Yining is the No.1 sunset photo spot of this "Jiangnan beyond the Great Wall" — at dusk the bridge's silhouette and golden ripples on the river share one frame

4

An exhibition hall commemorating Lin Zexu's historical legacy during his exile in Ili, showcasing his contributions to water conservancy (the Aqiwusu Canal), reclaiming wasteland for garrison farming, and surveying the frontier

5

Commemorates the marriage-alliance history of Western Han princesses Xijun and Jieyou, who married the Kunmo (king) of the Wusun far away: the two Han princesses lived in the Ili River valley for decades, helping forge a Han–Wusun alliance to fight the Xiongnu together

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Military and political center of Xinjiang under the Qing dynasty: in 1762 the Qing government appointed the Ili General as Xinjiang's highest military and civil authority, who was stationed here and built the city — known in history as the 'First Prefecture of the Western Regions'

7

Huocheng County lies at around 44 degrees north latitude, on the world's golden band for lavender growing alongside Provence in France and Hokkaido in Japan, making it China's home of lavender

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A high-mountain cold-water lake in the western Tianshan range at 2,073 meters above sea level, Xinjiang's largest and highest alpine lake; known in ancient times as the 'Pure Sea', it is called 'the last tear of the Atlantic' because it is the last place favored by the Atlantic's warm, moist air currents

9

A cable-stayed bridge spanning the Guozigou valley, opened to traffic in 2011; a landmark project of the Sayram–Guozigou section of the Lianhuo Expressway (G30), its deck sits more than 200 meters above the valley floor, earning it the title of 'Xinjiang's No. 1 Bridge'

10

One of the oldest land ports of entry in western China, with trade routes passing through as early as the Sui and Tang dynasties; today it is the western terminus of the Lianhuo Expressway and the site of the China–Kazakhstan border cooperation center

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The duty-free commercial zone of the China–Kazakhstan Khorgos International Border Cooperation Center, straddling the China–Kazakhstan border; entry is allowed with a border entry-exit permit

12

A city that serves as the headquarters of the Fourth Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, named after the song "Night on the Grassland" — in 1959 its lyricist wrote on the Kekedala grassland the line "Kekedala has changed its appearance"; the song is regarded as China's first "grassland nocturne"

13

Displays the civilizations of the Ili River Valley from prehistoric times to the modern era: gold artifacts unearthed from ancient Wusun tombs and grassland stone figures attest to the epic of the "ancient land of the Wusun", microliths and Bronze Age remains sketch early herding and hunting life, and the Kazakh folk-culture hall (yurts, dombra, horseback sports) vividly presents nomadic culture, ...

14

One of the world's four great alpine valley grasslands, its Kazakh name meaning "the place where the sun is first seen", with summer pastures rolling along the Kunes River valley

15

The Dushanzi-to-Kuqa section of National Highway G217 running north-south across the Tianshan Mountains, 561 km long; built from 1974 to 1983 by tens of thousands of troops over nine years, with 168 road-building soldiers lying in rest at the Qiaoerma Martyrs Memorial — the memorial is a must-stop cultural site on the route