Atlas of China
Aral 阿拉尔Ālā’ěr
A Bingtuan city where three rivers meet to form the Tarim
- Type
- County-level Cityadministered directly by Xinjiang
- Region
- Xinjiang
- Listed sites
- 41 rated 5A · 2 rated 4A · 1 national heritage
About Aral
Aral, Uyghur for 'island', is the city of the 1st Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (Bingtuan), built on reclaimed land on the northern edge of the Taklamakan near Xiaojiake, where the Aksu, Hotan and Yarkand rivers meet to form the Tarim. Its 5A Taklamakan–359th Brigade area centres on a memorial hall to the army units that came here to farm around 1950. In October the poplar woods along the Tarim turn gold around the dead trunks of the Sleeping Poplar Valley.
Listed sites in Aral
4 sites in Aral are on the official lists. Those with a page of their own link to it; the rest open as cards on the map.
- Taklamakan – 359th Brigade Cultural Tourism Area 塔克拉玛干·三五九旅文化旅游区 5A scenic area · on the map
A tourism area in Aral, the Bingtuan city of the 1st Division, centred on the 359th Brigade Reclamation Memorial Hall, which presents the history of the army units that came to Xinjiang around 1950 and turned to farming and land reclamation on the northern edge of the Taklamakan. - Sleeping Poplar Valley 睡胡杨谷 4A scenic area · on the map
A stand of dead desert poplars on the north-western edge of the Taklamakan in the 14th Regiment's land, where trunks covering more than 3,000 mu (about 2 km²) still stand upright or lie in twisted shapes; local sources link the die-off to the Keriya River ceasing to reach the area in the late Ming or early Qing period. - Tarim River Source Scenic Area 塔河源 4A scenic area · on the map
The scenic area at Xiaojiake, west of Aral, where the Aksu, Hotan and Yarkand rivers meet to form the Tarim, China's longest inland river. - Yuergun Military Reclamation Site 玉尔滚军垦旧址 National heritage site · on the map
A group of buildings put up in 1971–73 by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps at Yuergun, kept as a record of the Corps' land-reclamation settlements: a club with an auditorium and open-air cinema, and a clinic.
On the map
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