Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture[a] is an autonomous prefecture in the northern Xinjiang, China. Its capital is Bole, also known as Bortala. It has a population of 475,483 inhabiting an area of 27,000 km2 (10,000 sq mi). Despite being designated an autonomous area for Mongols in China, only a little over five and a half per cent of Bortala's population is Mongol.
Etymology
"Bortala" comes from the Mongolian words boro tala, which mean "brown steppe".
There are 35 nationalities in Bortala. According to the 2010 census, 65% of the 443,680 inhabitants are Han Chinese, while the remainder are Mongol, Uyghur, Kazakh, Hui or of other nationalities.[3]
In 2004 the prefecture had a total gross domestic product of 3.69 billion Renminbi (including the XPCC 5th division), an increase of 11.9% over the previous year. Annual total imports and exports totalled US$ 554 million, an increase of 96.8% over the previous year. Average annual salary was 11000 Renminbi, an increase of 7.6%; average annual pure income per capita for agricultural workers was 3904 Renminbi, an increase of 10.8%.
Transport
Alashankou is a port of entry with both railroads and roads linking China with Kazakhstan; it is also one of China's national first-class port of entry (国家一类口岸). The volume of imports / exports passing through Alashankou accounts for 90% of the total for all of Xinjiang, and has been second to only Manzhouli, Inner Mongolia among land ports-of-entry in China for 8 days.
7.1%
