YIN-CH'UAN

Pinyin Yinchuan, conventional Yinchwan capital of Hui Autonomous Region of Ningsia, north-central China. The city is located near the western bank of the upper course of the Huang Ho, near the western end of the Great Wall of China in the south-central section of the Ho-lan Mountains and Ordos Desert. It is served by a river port at Heng-ch'eng, about 9.5 miles (15 km) to the east. Until the 1950s the river, which is navigable downstream as far as Pao-t'ou in the Inner Mongolian autonomous region and upstream to Chung-wei and Chung-ning, was the chief communication link. Highways also link the city to Pao-t'ou along the river, to Lan-chou in Kansu province to the southwest, to Wu-wei in Kansu to the west, and to Hsi-an (Sian [Ch'ang-an]) in Shensi province to the southeast. Since 1958 the city has been on the railway from Lan-chou to Pao-t'ou and is thus linked to other parts of China by rail. Yin-ch'uan originally was a hsien (county) under the name of Fu-p'ing in the 1st century BC; its name was changed to Huai-yuan in the 6th century AD. After the fall of the T'ang dynasty in 907, it was occupied by the Tangut Peoples' Hsi-Hsia dynasty, of which it was the capital. After the destruction of the Hsi-Hsia dynasty by the Mongols in 1227, it came under the rule of the Mongol dynasty. Under the Ming (13681644) and Ch'ing (16441911) dynasties, it was the fu (prefecture) of Ning-hsia. In 1928, when the province of Ning-hsia was formed from parts of Kansu and Inner Mongolia, it became the capital city. In 1954, when Ning-hsia province was abolished, the city was put in Kansu province; but, with the establishment of the Ningsia Hui autonomous region in 1958, Yin-ch'uan once again became the capital. Traditionally, Yin-ch'uan was an administrative and commercial centre. In the 1950s it had many commercial enterprises, and there were some handicrafts but no modern industry. The city has since grown considerably. Extensive coal deposits discovered on the eastern bank of the Huang Ho, near Shih-tsui-shan, 60 miles (100 km) to the north, have made Shih-tsui-shan a coal-mining centre. Yin-ch'uan, however, remains largely nonindustrial. The immediate plains area, intensively irrigated by a system developed as long ago as the Han (206 BCAD 220) and T'ang (618907) dynasties, is extremely productive. Yin-ch'uan is the chief agricultural market and distribution centre for this area and also deals in animal products from the herds tended by nomads in the surrounding grasslands. It is a market for grain and has flour mills, as well as rice-hulling and oil-extraction plants. The wool produced in the surrounding plains supplies a woolen-textile mill. Yin-ch'uan is a centre for the Muslim (Hui) minority peoples, who constitute a third of the population. Pop. (1989 est.) 329,600.