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Urumchi with a population of about 2.6 million, is the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, in the northwest of the country. It is farther away from sea than any other large city in the world.
Urumqi is quite famous for its claim that is the most inland city in the world, that being the furthest from any ocean. Most people in Urumqi can speak some level of Mandarin Chinese, if you want to understand people, or try and speak a little bit, please check out Wikitravel's Chinese phrasebook. There are two major ethnic groups, the Han Chinese and the Uyghur, who can mostly speak Mandarin, albeit possibly with an accent, and Uyghur, a Turkic language.
Geography
Located in a green oasis between the lofty ice-capped Bogda Peak, the vast Salt Lake in the east, the rolling pine-covered Southern hill and the alternating fields and sand dunes of Zunggar Basin in the northwest, ürümqi has an average elevation of 800 meters. The largest city in the western half of China, ürümqi has won a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the most remote city from any sea in the world at a distance of about 1,400 miles (2500 km) from the nearest coastline (ürümqi being the city closest to the Eurasian Pole of Inaccessibility). The city has an area of 10,989 km2.
Climate
In ürümqi a continental steppe climate with hot and dry summers prevails with average temperatures in July at 24°C (75°F) as well as damp and cold winters with average temperatures in January at -16°C (3°F). The annual average temperature amounts to 5.4°C (41.7°F), and the yearly precipitation is about 273 mm.
Administrative divisions
Location of ürümqi Prefecture within Xinjiang
ürümqi currently comprises 8 administrative sub-divisions, county-level units, of these, 7 are districts and 1 is a county.
The areas of the city are divided into 7 districts and 1 county:
* Tianshan District
* Saybagh District
* Toutunhe District
* Shuimogou District
* Xinshi District
* Dongshan District
* Dabancheng District
* ürümqi County
