Talk:Southern Xinjiang

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Page scope

Southern Xinjiang is a Growing Region: a named cultivation region that sits above Growing Areas and below the regional complex and gene pool. It covers the oasis settlements of the western and southern rim of the Tarim Basin, drawn on four prefecture-level divisions of Xinjiang: Kashgar, Hotan, Aksu and Kizilsu. Its growing areas are Yarkand, Kashgar and Khotan.

Data verification

Check the main page for the sources behind each statement. Discuss the boundary, the places the region takes in, and the accessions and news items that belong to it here.

Discussion

Why the region is on the map

The sources name the oases of southern Xinjiang as the places where cannabis was grown for its resin:
- Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894), Vol. I, ch. VII, para. 293: a letter of 1881 from the British Joint Commissioner in Ladakh names Yarkand, Yengi Hissar, Kashgar and Khotan as the places that produced the charas of the Ladakh road. Para. 300: Captain Ramsay (1888), charas "is produced chiefly in the vicinity of Yarkand".
- Kreutzmann (2026), p. 78: Indian hemp "originated in high quality from the oases in Southern Xinjiang"; p. 80: charas of high quality from Khan-Arik, between Yarkand and Kashgar.
- Bellew (1875), pp. 4–5: hemp among the field crops of the oasis settlements; p. 222: hemp grown for its resin at Sanju.
- Forsyth (1871), p. 28: hemp "grown on the borders of every field in Yarkund"; p. 14: fields of hemp at Sanju.
- Aitchison (1874), p. 52: the finest charas at Karmak near Yangi Hissar, more from Postgraum and Kurgilik.
- Chopra and Chopra (1957): the highest yield and best quality of charas from plants grown in Yarkand, both wild and cultivated.
- Hu, Zhang and Hao (2015): large plantings in the 1950s and 1960s at Kashgar, Hotan, Makit, Yengisar, Maralbexi, Aksu, Toksu, Kuqa, Bügür and Korla; the main producing counties of máyān in the south (Shache, Makit, Yengisar, Maralbexi, Kargilik, Yopurga, Guma, Kuqa, Bügür).
- Zhou (2015): cultivation common in remote villages after 1949, spreading again from the late 1970s, above all in the south.
The name Southern Xinjiang translates 南疆 (Nánjiāng), the part of Xinjiang south of the Tian Shan in the regional government's own description. Kreutzmann uses the same phrase. The article gives older names (Kashgaria, Altishar, Sinkiang, Chinese Turkistan, Eastern Turkestan) as the names the sources use; it does not treat any of them as the region's title.
No source read describes the seed or the plants of southern Xinjiang as a landrace, and the article does not call them one. McPartland and Small (2020) place a Yarkand specimen of 1871 in their var. afghanica; the article reports that as their classification.

Growing status

The status is Active. Two articles of 2015 describe cultivation as current: Hu, Zhang and Hao write that the producing areas of máyān are at present mainly in southern Xinjiang and name the counties, and Zhou writes that growing cannabis and making and trafficking máyān are frequent in Xinjiang. Neither gives a dated observation after 2000 for a named place in the region; the latest dated cultivation case in either article for the region is the Toksu case of June 1997. Zhou also writes that strict action against growing in Xinjiang has led many people to bring cannabis in from other provinces. None of these sources says that growing in the region has ended.

The Indian annual report for 1944, quoted by the United Nations Secretariat (1953), says that production in Chinese Turkistan was reported to have stopped. Later sources (Zhou 2015; Hu, Zhang and Hao 2015) describe cultivation after 1949, so that report is given in the article as what it says about the 1940s and not as the end of growing.

How the border is drawn

The border is a proxy, drawn on administrative units: Kashgar Prefecture, Hotan Prefecture, Aksu Prefecture and Kizilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture (OpenStreetMap relations 2748436, 2748339, 2748825 and 2710679). The cities of the Production and Construction Corps that lie inside them (Tumxuk, Kunyu, Alar) are filled in. The union is about 531,000 km², the figure in the infobox.
Every place the sources name for cultivation lies in these four prefectures except two: Bügür (Luntai County) and Korla, which Hu, Zhang and Hao list for the 1950s and 1960s (and Bügür again among the producing counties of 2015), lie east of them in Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture and are outside the border. The article gives Hu, Zhang and Hao's lists as they stand.
Kizilsu is inside the border as the mountain rim of the Kashgar oasis, from the Pamirs to the Tian Shan; no source read names a place in it.
The area under the China–India boundary dispute (Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract), which the Hotan and Kashgar relations take in, is left out. No source places cultivation there, and it is not part of the oasis rim.
The border is not drawn from accession or news points.

Accessions inside the border

Three accessions lie inside the border. None is filed under the region, because none of their labels documents cultivation:

Pelliot 121 (1906), Kashgar: the label gives the date, the place and the flower colour.
Trofimov s.n., Hotan (1940), Khotan district: the label says the plant was found in sown fields, and its collector determined it as the wild variety, var. spontanea.
EBC 71830 (s.d.), Yarkand: an undated seed sample; the catalogue gives no collector or date.

No news item recorded on the wiki falls inside the border.

Sources

Kreutzmann (2026), in Transactions in Xinjiang, pp. 77–85: read in full (the repository PDF).
Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894): Vol. I, ch. VII (pp. 111–114) and ch. XIV (p. 273), and the Punjab memorandum in Vol. III (pp. 46–48), read on the page images.
Bellew (1875), Forsyth (1871) and Aitchison (1874): the scans on Wikimedia Commons, searched in full for cannabis terms and the pages cited read.
Chopra and Chopra (1957) and United Nations Secretariat (1953), Bulletin on Narcotics: read in full.
Hu, Zhang and Hao (2015) and Zhou (2015), Chinese Journal of Drug Dependence: read in the republications named in the citations; the journal versions were not reached.
McPartland and Small (2020): the passages on var. afghanica and the figure of the Yarkand specimen were read.

Where the sources disagree

When the export ended. The United Nations Secretariat (1953) concluded that the provincial government prohibited the export of charas in 1934, with effects felt only years later; Kreutzmann (2026, pp. 80, 82–83) describes an export duty raised in 1936 and a proclamation of January 1936; the Chopras (1957) date the end of imports into India to about 1934–35. The article gives all three.
Cultivation under Yakub Beg. Forsyth (1871, p. 28) describes hemp on the borders of every field in Yarkand; Aitchison (1874, pp. 51–52) writes that the ruler had prohibited field cultivation, leaving single rows round other crops; Bellew (1875, p. 383) writes that opium and hemp were under no restrictions. The article gives all three.
Where the best charas came from. Yengi Hissar (the Joint Commissioner, 1881), Karmak near Yangi Hissar (Aitchison 1874), Khan-Arik between Yarkand and Kashgar (Kreutzmann 2026) and Yarkand (the Chopras, 1957). The article gives each as its source's.
Cannabis after 1949. Zhou (2015) writes that cannabis, with opium, was completely eradicated after 1949, yet that growing remained common in remote villages. The article reports the second statement, which the rest of his account and Hu, Zhang and Hao support.

Sources not used

Davies (1862), on the charas imported from Yarkand in the 1850s, was not read for this page.
Shoqan Walikhanov (1858) is quoted by Zhou (2015) on the cannabis of Yengisar; his own report was not read, so he is not cited.
Li Huan (1944), Xinjiang yanjiu, is known only through a later popular article and is not cited.
The 1936 provincial measures against máyān, known from the same popular article, are not cited: the article could not be checked against the archive file it names.