Turpan Prefecture also known as Turfan Prefecture or Tulufan Prefecture, is located in the east of Xinjiang

Xinjiang

Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...

, People's Republic of China. It has an area

Area

Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat...

 of 69,324 km² and a population of 570,000 (2003).

Demographics

According to the 2000 Census, of its inhabitants, 70.01% are Uyghur

Uyghur people

The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...

, 23.3% are Han

Han Chinese

Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...

, 6.38% are Hui

Hui people

The Hui people are an ethnic group in China, defined as Chinese speaking people descended from foreign Muslims. They are typically distinguished by their practice of Islam, however some also practice other religions, and many are direct descendants of Silk Road travelers.In modern People's...

, with the remainder belonging to other ethnicities.

Climate

Turpan has a harsh, cold desert climate

Desert climate

A desert climate , also known as an arid climate, is a climate that does not meet the criteria to be classified as a polar climate, and in which precipitation is too low to sustain any vegetation at all, or at most a very scanty scrub.An area that features this climate usually experiences less than...

 (Köppen

Köppen climate classification

The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by Crimea German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen himself, notably in 1918 and 1936...

 BWk), with long and very hot summers, winters that are quite cold and moderately long, and brief spring and autumn in between. Annual precipitation is very low, amounting to only 15.7 millimetre (0.618110236220472 in). Monthly average temperatures range from −7.6 °C in January to 32.2 °C (90 °F) in July, and the annual mean is 14.4 °C (57.9 °F).

Extremes at Turpan City have ranged from −28.9 °C to 48.1 °C (119 °F).

Subdivisions

Turpan Prefecture directly controls 1 county-level city

County-level city

A county-level city is a county-level administrative division of mainland China. County-level cities are usually governed by prefecture-level divisions, but a few are governed directly by province-level divisions....

 and 2 counties.

#	Name	Hanzi	Hanyu Pinyin	Uyghur Uyghur language Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...		Population (2003 est.)	Area (km²)	Density (/km²)
1	Turpan City	吐鲁番市	Tǔlǔfān Shì	تۇرپان شەھىرى	Turpan Shehiri	260,000	13,690	19
2	Shanshan County	鄯善县	Shànshàn Xiàn	پىچان ناھىيىسى	Pichan Nahiyisi	210,000	39,759	5
3	Toksun County Toksun County The Toksun County is a county within the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China and is under the administration of the Turpan Prefecture. It contains an area of 16,128 km2. According to the 2002 census, it then had a population of 110,000...	托克逊县	Tuōkèxùn Xiàn	توقسۇن ناھىيىسى	Toqsun Nahiyisi	110,000	16,171	7