SHIH-HO-TZU

Pinyin Shihezi, new city in the Uighur Autonomous Region of Sinkiang, China. The city is situated north of the Tien Shan range in the south-central Dzungarian Basin near the Ma-na-ssu River. Prior to 1949 the area was sparsely inhabited by Uighur, Kazak, and other Turkic pastoralists. The new Chinese government sent a colony of soldiers (later provided with wives), organized as a military construction corps, to the area in 1950 to dig irrigation ditches, clear fields, and build housing for settlement. Today state farms around Shih-ho-tzu produce corn (maize), wheat, cotton, grapes, and sugar beets. The city's industries include a sugar refinery, a cannery, a woolen mill, an oil-pressing mill, a flour mill, and an agricultural-machinery plant. Most of the population of the city is ethnic Chinese. It is connected by road with Urumchi to the southeast and with Karamay to the northwest. Pop. (1990) 299,676.