Place:Ningsia, People's Republic of China

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Ningxia , (; alternately romanized as Ninghsia), officially the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NHAR), is a landlocked autonomous region in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. Formerly a province, Ningxia was incorporated into Gansu in 1954 but was later separated from Gansu in 1958 and reconstituted as an autonomous region for the Hui people, one of the 56 officially recognised nationalities of China. Twenty percent of China's Hui population lives in Ningxia.

Ningxia is bounded by Shaanxi to the east, Gansu to the south and west and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to the north and has an area of around .^[1] This sparsely settled, mostly desert region lies partially on the Loess Plateau and in the vast plain of the Yellow River and features the Great Wall of China along its northeastern boundary. Over about 2000 years an extensive system of canals (The total length about 1397 kilometers) has been built from Qin dynasty. Extensive land reclamation and irrigation projects have made increased cultivation possible. The arid region of Xihaigu, which covers large parts of the province, suffers from severe water shortage, which the canals were intended to alleviate.

Ningxia was the core area of the Western Xia in the 11th-13th century, established by the Tangut people; its name, "Peaceful Xia", derived from the Mongol conquest of the state.^[2] The Tanguts made significant achievements in literature, art, music, and architecture, particularly invented Tangut script. Long one of the country's poorest areas, a small winemaking industry has become economically important since the 1980s. Before the arrival of viticulture, Ningxia's 6.8 million people, 36 per cent of whom are Muslims from the Hui ethnic group, relied largely on animal grazing, subsistence agriculture and the cultivation of wolfberries used in traditional Chinese medicine. Since then, winemaking has become the premier specialty of Ningxia. The province housed almost 40,000 hectares of wine grapes and produced 120 million wine bottles in 2017 – a quarter of the entire nation's production.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

As a frontier zone between nomadic pastoralists and sedentary farmers, Ningxia was a frequent seat of war and incursions by non-Chinese tribes. Ningxia and its surrounding areas were incorporated into the Qin as the Beidi Commandery as early as the 3rd century BC. To pacify the region, the imperial government established military colonies to reclaim land. In addition, horse pasturages were founded under the Imperial Stud to safeguard the supply of army horses, as early as the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE – 9 CE).^[3] Throughout the Han dynasty and the Tang dynasty there were several large cities established in the region. The Liang Province rebellion at the end of the Han Dynasty affected Ningxia.

By the 11th century the Tangut people had established the Western Xia dynasty on the outskirts of the then-Song dynasty. Jews also lived in Ningxia, as evidenced by the fact that in 1489, after a major flood destroyed Torah scrolls in Kaifeng, a replacement was sent to the Kaifeng Jews by the Ningbo and Ningxia Jewish communities.

It then came under Mongol domination after Genghis Khan conquered Yinchuan in the early 13th century. Muslims from Central Asia also began moving into Ningxia from the west. The Muslim Dungan Revolt of the 19th century affected Ningxia.

In 1914, Ningxia was merged with the province of Gansu. However, in 1928 it was detached from Gansu and became a separate province. Between 1914 and 1928, the Ma clique ruled the provinces of Qinghai, Ningxia and Gansu; General Ma Hongkui was the military governor of Ningxia and had absolute authority in the province. The Muslim conflict in Gansu, which lasted from 1927 to 1930, spilled over into Ningxia. In 1934, warlord and National Revolutionary Army general Sun Dianying attempted to conquer the province, but was defeated by an alliance led by the Ma clique.

From 1950 to 1958, a Kuomintang Islamic insurgency resulted in fighting throughout Northwest China, including Ningxia. In 1954, the Chinese government merged Ningxia with Gansu, but in 1958 Ningxia formally became an autonomous region of China. In 1969, Ningxia received a part of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, but this area was returned in 1979.

A number of Chinese artifacts dating from the Tang dynasty and Song dynasty, some of which had been owned by Emperor Zhenzong, were excavated and then came into the hands of Ma Hongkui, who refused to publicize the findings. Among the artifacts were a white marble tablet from the Tang dynasty, gold nails, and bands made out of metal. It was not until after Ma died that his wife went to Taiwan in 1971 from America to bring the artifacts to Chiang Kai-shek, who turned them over to the Taipei National Palace Museum.

Research Tips