Xinjiang
autonomous region in China
Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), in the northwest of the country at the crossroads of Central Asia and East Asia. The largest province-level division of China by area and the 8th-largest country subdivision in the world, Xinjiang spans over 1.6 million square kilometers (620,000 sq mi) and has about 25 million inhabitants. Xinjiang borders the countries of Afghanistan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, and Tajikistan. The rugged Karakoram, Kunlun, and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of Xinjiang's borders, as well as its western and southern regions. The Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract regions are claimed by India but administered by China. Xinjiang also borders the Tibet Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu and Qinghai. The best-known route of the historic Silk Road ran through the territory from the east to its northwestern border.
High mountain ranges divide Xinjiang into the Dzungarian Basin (Dzungaria) in the north and the Tarim Basin in the south. Only about 9.7% of Xinjiang's land area is fit for human habitation. It is home to a number of ethnic groups, including the Han Chinese, Hui, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Mongols, Russians, Sibe, Tajiks (Pamiris), Tibetans, and Uyghurs.
“Xinjiang” enters the record as autonomous region in China. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Xinjiang, autonomous and region can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Xinjiang” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Xinjiang, autonomous and region provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q34800. VIAF identifies the subject as 237867093. The Library of Congress control number is n81018776. Authority coordinates are 43.825, 87.614. 3 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Xinjiang” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.