Khotan
More actions
| Khotan | |
|---|---|
| Hotan; Hetian (和田) | |
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Growing Region | Southern Xinjiang |
| Geography | |
| Country | China |
| Province/State | Xinjiang |
| Coordinates | 37.11, 79.92 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 210,000 km² |
| Terrain | Oases at the foot of the Kunlun on the southern rim of the Tarim Basin, with the Taklamakan Desert to the north; approximately Hotan Prefecture |
| Climate | |
| Climate Type | Arid |
| Growing history | |
| Earlier names | Khoten; Ilchí |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Khotan is a cannabis growing area of the oases along the southern rim of the Tarim Basin, at the foot of the Kunlun, in Xinjiang, China. It is part of the Southern Xinjiang growing region, and is drawn on Hotan Prefecture. In 1881 the British Joint Commissioner in Ladakh named Khotan among the places that produced the charas brought into India by the Ladakh road.[1] The psychiatrists Hu Hongxing, Zhang Guanbai and Hao Wei listed Guma (Pishan) in 2015 among the main producing counties of Xinjiang's cannabis smoking-mixture,[2] and in 2008–09 the border police of Hotan Prefecture uprooted more than 30,000 cannabis plants.[3]
Cultivation in the nineteenth century
W. H. Johnson, a surveyor who travelled to Ilchí, the capital of Khotan, reported in 1867 that the plant from which charas is extracted "is met with in almost every field" of the country; it differed slightly from the charas plant of India, with broader leaves, and grew larger.[4]: 6 Douglas Forsyth's mission of 1870 passed through fields of wheat, wild oats, hemp and maize at Sanju, a settlement of hamlets and gardens in a green ravine, now in Pishan County.[5]: 14 H. W. Bellew, who stopped at Sanju with the British embassy of 1873–74, described it as a settlement of about twelve hundred households on the Sarighyar river, whose farmers grew "Hemp, for its resin, which is a staple export to India" among their wheat, maize, rice, barley, flax and cotton.[6]: 221–222
Not every account agrees. The route notes printed in the report of the same embassy, in a list of prices in the Khotan market, say that rope was made from mulberry bark and from hemp, "which is, however, very little grown in this province".[7]: 450
Since 1949
Hu, Zhang and Hao write that in the 1950s and 1960s cannabis was still planted in large quantities at Hotan, among other places, where the plant could be seen everywhere.[2]
Since 2000
In the account Hu, Zhang and Hao published in 2015, Guma (Pishan) was among the main producing counties of the smoking-mixture máyān (麻烟, "hemp smoke") in southern Xinjiang.[2] In February 2009 the border defence authorities of Xinjiang reported a case of growing and selling máyān in Hotan Prefecture. Acting on a lead about sales in a village of Karakax County, they arrested two people and seized 195 kg of máyān. The Hotan border police detachment said that since the previous year it had dealt with 13 cases of growing and selling máyān, arrested 39 people and uprooted more than 30,000 cannabis plants. The report said that the climate and terrain of Hotan Prefecture suited cannabis, and that growing cannabis privately and selling máyān were fairly common there.[3]
Herbarium specimens
T. T. Trofimov collected the herbarium sheet Trofimov s.n., Hotan (1940) in sown fields in a village of the Khotan district in October 1940, and determined it as the wild variety, var. spontanea.[8]
Appellations
No appellation pages exist for this growing area yet.
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for this growing area yet.
See also
References
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. VII, "Trade and movement of the hemp drugs", paras. 293–295, pp. 111–112 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Hu, Hongxing; Zhang, Guanbai; Hao, Wei (2015). 中国新疆大麻使用及相关问题的历史与现状 [History and current status of cannabis use and related problems in Xinjiang, China]. 中国药物依赖性杂志 [Chinese Journal of Drug Dependence] (in 中文) (4): 241–243, 287. ISSN 1007-9718. Retrieved 3 October 2026 – via 杜新忠戒毒网.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 闫文陆; 李德模 (6 February 2009). 新疆查获特大种植贩卖麻烟案缴获毒品近两百公斤 [Xinjiang uncovers a very large case of growing and selling máyān and seizes nearly 200 kg of drugs]. 手机新浪网 (in 中文). 中国新闻网. Retrieved 19 October 2026.
- ↑ Johnson, W. H. (1867). "Report on his journey to Ilchí, the capital of Khotan, in Chinese Tartary". Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London. 37: 1–47. doi:10.2307/1798517. JSTOR 1798517.
- ↑ Yarkand (Forsyth's Mission): Copy or Extracts of Correspondence relating to the Mission of Mr. Douglas Forsyth to Yarkand (PDF). London: India Office. 1871 – via Wikimedia Commons.
- ↑ Bellew, H. W. (1875). Kashmir and Kashghar: A Narrative of the Journey of the Embassy to Kashghar in 1873–74 (PDF). London: Trübner & Co. – via Wikimedia Commons.
- ↑ Report of a Mission to Yarkund in 1873, under Command of Sir T. D. Forsyth, K.C.S.I., C.B., Bengal Civil Service (PDF). 1875 – via Wikimedia Commons.
- ↑ "Specimen MW0736230: Cannabis sativa L." Moscow Digital Herbarium. Moscow State University. Retrieved 13 October 2026.