Thread by @porbotialora

A thread on Xinjiang - the place which most probably have heard of already.

Also called "Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region"

Uyghurs, a Turkic speaking group make up the largest ethnicity in the region

They are predominantly Muslim and follow the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam.

Xinjiang literally means the "frontier land"

The region can be divided into two parts - Dzungaria between the Tian Shan and Altay Mountains and the Tarim Basin which encompasses the Taklamakan Desert and the Kunlun and Pamir mountains bounding it.

The Tarim Basin wasn't always Turkic. Right at the beginning of the common era, the region housed the kingdom of Khotan.

The inhabitants of the region were an Iranic group called Khotanese who also used Gandhari.

A painting of Shiva and a statue of Gautama Buddha.

Unearthed mummies give a clue that the people there were Caucasoid with red hair prior to the arrival of the Turkic tribes.

King Visa Sambhava (also known as Li Shentian), the Buddhist king of the kingdom of Khotan.

Just north of the Khotanese were Tocharians (referred as Tushara in ancient Indian texts)

They were also Buddhists much like their neighbours.

Things would start changing with migration of Turkic tribes out of Mongolia.

The Buddhist Turks would intermix with the native Iranic people and mixed race would be born that would be Buddhist in faith at first.

This would change after a while as Muslim Turks from the West would eventually Turkify and Islamize the entire region.

I won't comment on it much but will just leave a small poem.

"kälginläyü aqtïmïz
kändlär üzä čïqtïmïz
furxan ävin yïqtïmïz
burxan üzä sïčtïmïz"

"We came down on them like a flood,
We went out among their cities,
We tore down the idol-temples,
We shat on the Buddha's head!"

By the end of the 16th century, Buddhism had been wiped off from the Tarim Basin and only elements of its native culture remained.

Several "holy wars" were undertaken by leaders such as Muslim Chagatai Khizr Khwaja for the purpose.

Just north of the Tarim Basin was Dzungaria.

Dzungars were a group of Mongolic tribe who practiced Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism.

Kalmyks of Russia are the descendants of those that migrated from 1607 onwards to escape persecution.

The Dzungar Khanate had grown to be quite big and startes giving trouble to the Manchu led Qing dynasty.

After several battles, the Manchus finally defeated the Mongols.

Resulting from a failed negotiation, the Qing emperor ordered a mass extermination of the entire population.

Some 800,000 people were killed which wiped out the entire Dzungar population in essence.

Qing scholar Wei Yuan, wrote that about 50% of the Dzungar households were killed by smallpox, 20% fled to Russia or the Kazakh Khanate, and 30% were killed by the army.

The depopulated region was then settled by Uyghur, Hui (Chinese Muslim), Han immigrants.

The Qing victory was seen as a "victory of Islam" as it allowed for the rise of the Turkic Muslim populace in the now depopulated regions that were formerly inhabited by Buddhist Mongols.

Xinjiang only became a single entity when the two regions were merged together in 1884.

-Dzungaria/Zhunbu or Tianshan Beilu (Northern March)
-Tarim Basin/Altishahr, Huibu (Muslim region), Huijiang (Muslim-land) or "Tianshan Nanlu (southern March)

An census of Xinjiang from 1800s under Qing empire gave the demographics
30% Han Chinese, 60% Turkic

This had changed drastically by 1953 because of emigration and difference in birth rates.
7% Han Chinese, 75% Uyghur

But since the formation of the PRC, the Han Chinese population has rebounded and now resemble those of Qing era.

~90% of Uyghurs live in the Tarim Basin while 90% of the Han Chinese stay in the Dzungar region.

In the Xinjiang 2010 census, Uyghur account for 45.84%, Han 40.48%, Kazakh 6.50%, Hui 4.51% and the rest account for 2.67%.  In 2010 all ethnic minority groups amount to 59.52%

When you see the religious demographics, the province becomes
-58% Muslim
-1% Christian
-41% Buddhist, Confucianism, Taoism and other Chinese religions.

If we see it from across each of its prefectures, the ethnic demography becomes easier to understand.

-Urumqi:
74.91% Han Chinese
9.0% Hui
12.46% Uyghur

-Karamay:
81.65% Han Chinese
2.11% Hui
11.47% Uyghur

-Hami
68.4% Han Chinese
31.6% Others

-Changji Hui AP
75.31% Han Chinese
12.15% Hui
8.4% Kazakh
4.13% Uyghur

-Bortala Mongol AP
64.96% Han Chinese
5.22% Hui
13.32% Uyghur
10.01% Kazakh
5.66% Mongol

-Bayingolin AP
59.29% Han Chinese
4.73% Hui
31.83% Uyghur
3.4% Mongol

-Ili Kazakh AP:
#1 Tacheng
58.6% Han Chinese
24.2% Kazakh
4.1% Uyghur

#2 Altay
40.9% Han Chinese
51.4% Kazakh

#3 Kuitun
94.6% Han Chinese
1.8% Kazakh

-Turpan
18.6% Han Chinese
6.0% Hui
75.01% Uyghur

-Shihezi
91.85% Han Chinese
3.97% Hui
1.99% Uyghur

-Wujiaqu
95.79% Han Chinese
2.63% Hui

-Aksu
18.42% Han Chinese
80.1% Uyghur

-Kashgar/Kashi*
9.2% Han Chinese
89.3% Uyghur

*includes Tashkurgan Tajik AC
84% Tajik
4% Han

-Khotan
3.3% Han Chinese
96.4% Uyghur

-Kizilsu Kyrgyz AP
6.78% Han Chinese
64.68% Uyghur
27.32% Kyrgyz

As per the 1998 census
-Urban Kashgar/Kashi
81% Uyghur
18% Han Chinese

-Urban Hotan/Khotan
83% Uyghur
17% Han Chinese

The next prefectures to flip to Han Chinese majority/plurality will probably be Altay followed by Aksu and then Kizilsu.

Even urban Kashgar and Hotan are seeing a rise in Han Chinese populace.