Uyghurs

The Uyghurs /ˈwiːɡər/ (Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر‎, ULY: Uyghur ;[ʔʊjˈʁʊː]; Old Turkic: ;Chinese: 维吾尔族; pinyin: Wéiwúěr zú) are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, where they are one of 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities.

An estimated 80% of Xinjiang's Uyghurs live in the southwestern portion of the region, the Tarim Basin. Outside Xinjiang, the largest community of Uyghurs in China is in Taoyuan County, in south-central Hunan. Outside of China, significant diasporic communities of Uyghurs exist in the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, and in Turkey. Smaller communities are found in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada, and the United States.

They practice Islam and are a physically diverse ethnic group ranging from Western Eurasian (Europeans, Middle Eastern) to a more mixed race and East Asian appearance.

China

China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion. The PRC is a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, with its seat of government in the capital city of Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces; five autonomous regions; four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing); two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau); and claims sovereignty over Taiwan.

Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometers, China is the world's second-largest country by land area, and either the third or fourth-largest by total area, depending on the method of measurement. China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes and the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in the arid north to subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometres (9,000 mi) long, and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East and South China Seas.

Silk Road

The Silk Road or Silk Route is an ancient network of trade routes that were central to cultural interaction through regions of the Asian continent connecting the West and East from China to the Mediterranean Sea.

The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in Chinese silk carried out along its length, beginning during the Han dynasty (207 BCE – 220 CE). The Central Asian sections of the trade routes were expanded around 114 BCE by the Han dynasty, largely through the missions and explorations of Chinese imperial envoy, Zhang Qian. The Chinese took great interest in the safety of their trade products and extended the Great Wall of China to ensure the protection of the trade route.

Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the civilizations of China, the Indian subcontinent, Persia, Europe, the Horn of Africa and Arabia, opening long-distance, political and economic relations between the civilizations. Though silk was certainly the major trade item from China, many other goods were traded, and religions, syncretic philosophies, and various technologies, as well as diseases, also travelled along the Silk Routes. In addition to economic trade, the Silk Road served as a means of carrying out cultural trade among the civilizations along its network.

Chinese

Chinese can refer to:

Han Chinese

The Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to East Asia. They constitute approximately 92% of the population of Mainland China, 93% of the population of Hong Kong, 92% of the population of Macau, 98% of the population of Taiwan, 76.2% of the citizen population of Singapore, 24.5% of the population of Malaysia, and about 19% of the entire global human population, making them the largest ethnic group in the world. The Han Chinese are regarded as a subset of the Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu). They sometimes refer to themselves as Yan Huang Zisun, meaning the "descendants of (god-emperors) Yan and Huang".

Terms and etymology

The name Han comes from the Han dynasty, which succeeded the short-lived Qin dynasty. The Han dynasty's founding emperor, Liu Bang (Emperor Gao), was originally known as the king of the region of Hanzhong after which the dynasty was named. The name Hanzhong, in turn, is derived from the Han River, which flows through the Hanzhong Plain (zhong means middle).