Hami

Hami ( ), or Kumul ( ), is a prefecture-level city in eastern Xinjiang, China. It is well known for sweet Hami melons. In early 2016, the former Hami county-level city merged with Hami Prefecture to form the Hami prefecture-level city with the county-level city becoming Yizhou District. Since the Han dynasty, Hami has been known for its production of agricultural products and raw resources.

Hami ( ), or Kumul ( ), is a prefecture-level city in eastern Xinjiang, China. It is well known for sweet Hami melons. In early 2016, the former Hami county-level city merged with Hami Prefecture to form the Hami prefecture-level city with the county-level city becoming Yizhou District. Since the Han dynasty, Hami has been known for its production of agricultural products and raw resources. ==History== ===Origins and names=== " and "Cataio", on a 1570 map by Abraham Ortelius]] Cumuḍa (sometimes Cimuda or Cunuda) is the oldest known endonym of Hami, when it was founded by a people known in Han Chinese sources as the Xiao Yuezhi ("Lesser Yuezhi"), during the 1st millennium BCE. The oldest attested Chinese name is " " ( ). By the time of the Han dynasty, it was referred to in Chinese as " " ( ) or " " ( ). Under the Tang dynasty, it was also known as , . The name I-gou, I-gu, Igu, &c. sometimes encountered in European discussion of Hami was a mistaken form of Yiwu introduced by Stanislas Julien in his translation of Huili's biography of Xuanzang. By the 10th century CE, the city and its residents were known to the Han as " " ( ). A monk named Gao Juhui, who had traveled to the Tarim Basin, wrote that the Zhongyun were descendants of the Xiao Yuezhi and that the king of Zhongyun lived near Lop Nur. Following the subsequent settlement of Uyghur-speaking people in the area, Cumuḍa became known as Čungul, Xungul, Qumul, Qomul and Kumul (Yengi Yezik̡: K̡umul, K̡omul). The toponym also appears as " " in the History of the Yuan dynasty, the biographies of which include references to the place using both names: Baurchuk Art Tekin ( ) bases his troops at Hāmìlì in juan 122, while one Tabun ( ) is recorded as being a man of Yīwúlú in juan 124. During the Yuan dynasty the Mongolian name for the place, Qamil, transcribed into Chinese as " " ( ), was widely used. Marco Polo reported visiting "Camul" in the early 14th century and that was the name under which it first appeared on European maps, during the 16th century. From the Ming dynasty onwards, Qumul was known in Han sources as " " ( ). When Matteo Ricci visited the city in 1605, in his account of the Portuguese Jesuit Benedict Goës, he used the same spelling as well. Lionel Giles has recorded the following names (with his Wade–Giles forms of the Chinese names converted to Pinyin): Kunwu (Zhou) Yiwu or Yiwulu (Han) Yiwu Jun (Sui) Yizhou or Yi Zhou (Tang) Kumul, Kamul, Camul (Turkic) Khamil (Mongol) Hami (modern Chinese name) The modern Chinese name Hami was originally applied to the wider province, which had its historic capital at Qocho 325 km to the west of the city of Hami. ==Geography and climate== Hami is located at the border with Gansu province. It is characterized by strong elevation gradients between the low elevations of the Hami basin and peaks up to circa above sea level in the Qarlik and Barkol mountain ranges. Hami (Kumul) is in a fault depression at above sea level, and has a temperate zone, continental desert climate (Köppen BWk) (see Hami Desert), with extreme differences between summer and winter, and dry, sunny weather year-round. On average, there is only of precipitation annually, occurring on 25 days of the year. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 68% in December to 79% in September and October, the city receives 3,285 hours of bright sunshine annually, making it one of the sunniest nationally. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from in January to in July, while the annual mean is . The diurnal temperature variation is typically large, at about an average for the year. ==Demographics== , Hami had a population of about 580,000, of which 68.4% were Han Chinese and 31.6% ethnic minorities, mostly Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Hui. As of 2015, 427,657 (76.6%) of the 616,711 residents of the county were Han Chinese, 109,072 (17.6%) were Uyghur, 55,550 (9.0%) were Kazakh and 17,588 (2.8%) were Hui. ==Economy== The Hami area is known for its large amount of high quality raw resources with 76 kinds of metals already detected. The major mineral resources of this area include coal, iron, copper, nickel, gold. A newly discovered nickel deposit in Hami is estimated to contain reserves of over 15.8 million tons of the metal, it therefore ranks as China's second largest nickel mine. Around 900,000 tons of nickel has already been detected. Some local copper and nickel mining enterprises are reported to have begun operation, with Xinjiang Nonferrous Metals Group mining company running its nickel smelter crude production furnace at Hami Industrial Park. China is building a field of ICBM silos near Hami, about 380 km (240 miles) northwest of another field near Yumen. ==Transport== ]] Hami is connected to Xinjiang and the rest of China by both high-speed and conventional rail links. The Lanzhou–Xinjiang High-Speed Railway, a passenger dedicated high speed rail line running from Lanzhou in Gansu Province to Ürümqi passes through the city. Hami is a stopping point for the Lanzhou–Xinjiang Railway and Ejin–Hami Railway, two lines that are part of trans-national transport corridors. The Lanzhou–Xinjiang Railway carries passengers and freight, connecting the rest of China to Central Asia and beyond as part of the New Eurasian Land Bridge through a border cross in Kazakhstan, and the Ejin–Hami Railway moves passengers and freight as part of a planned corridor beginning in the Bohai Gulf in North China to Torugart Pass on the border with Kyrgyzstan. A short rail line of transports potassium salts mined near Lop Nur to Hami. By road Hami is located along China National Highway 312, an east–west route of from Shanghai to Khorgas, Xinjiang in the Ili River valley, on the border with Kazakhstan. Hami Yizhou Airport is a one-gate airport located northeast of the city center. ==See also== Khoja Niyaz Hami melon ==Footnotes== ==References== Giles, Lionel (1930–1932). "A Chinese Geographical Text of the Ninth Century." BSOS VI, pp. 825–846. Grosier, Abbe (1888). A General Description of China. Translated from the French. G.G.J. and J. Robinson, London. Hill, John E. (2009) Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina. . ==External links== hmnet.gov.cn Chinese government site on K̡umul (in Chinese) hami.gov.cn Chinese government site on K̡umul (in Chinese)

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1377785420 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.