Denoting “a beautiful pasture” in Mongolian, Urumqi City located in the middle of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, northern of Mountain Tianshan, the south edge of Zhunger Basins.

It is the capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the center of politics, economy and culture of Xinjiang. It also is the communications pivot of connecting with Xinjiang and inland provinces, and now it has become the window of exchange for economy culture and the important door of expending the opening to western of China.

In the heyday of the Tang Dynasty, Urumqi was office of Grand Duhu (superme commander) of Beijing Prefecture; it was formally named Urumqi in 1755 and changed into “Dihua” in 1763, but it resumed the old name in 1954.

The average elevation of Urumqi City is 800 meters, belongs to semiarid continental climate of middle temperate zone, annual temperature is 6.4°c average and has 236mm of average annual precipitation. The city has jurisdiction over seven zones and one county, the total area is 12,000 square kilometers, among which the city program area is 1,600 square kilometers and the established area is 82 square kilometers.

Urumqi is a multi-national city, where there are 43 ethnic groups headed by the Han, the Uygur, the Kazak, the Hui, the Mongolian and etc, with a total population is 1,548 thousands up to the end of 1998 year, of which minority nationality makes up 27.3 percent .

The distribution of population is characteristic of “Big City, Small Suburbs”, which the agricultural population only makes up 13 percent of the total one.

There are many natural scenes in Urumqi City, such as the beautiful Mountain Nanshan Natural Pasture, fragrant Gangou Chrysanthemum Terrace, torrential Poplar Ravine Waterfall, Crystalline Ancient Glacier, world-famous Tianchi Lake Scenic Area with green waters and icy peaks, and large Mountainous Parks, in addition to plentiful famous cultural heritages.