Karamay

Karamay (also spelled Karamai) is a prefecture-level city in the north of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China. It is surrounded on all sides by Tacheng Prefecture. The name of the city comes from the Uyghur language and means "black oil", referring to the oil fields near the city.

Karamay was the site of one of the worst disasters in modern Chinese history, the 1994 Karamay fire, when 324 people, including 288 school children, lost their lives in a cinema fire on 8 December 1994.

Subdivisions
Karamay City has jurisdiction over four districts. They are not contiguous as Dushanzi District is located south of the Lanxin Railway and forms an exclave, separated from the rest of Karamay City by Kuytun City. Together with Kuytun City, Karamay City forms an enclave surrounded on all sides by Tacheng Prefecture.

Geography
Karamay is located in the northwest of the Dzungarian basin, with an average elevation of 400 m. Its administrative area ranges in latitude from 44° 07' to 46° 08' N and in longitude from 80° 44' to 86° 01' E and has a maximal 240 km north–south extent and reaches 110 km in east–west width. It borders Hoboksar Mongol Autonomous County to the northeast, Shawan County to the southeast, Toli County and Wusu to the west and Kuytun to the south.

The naturally available water supply in the Karamay area is limited: it mostly consists of two small rivers (the Baiyang River and the Da'erbute River (达尔不特河) flowing into the Dzungarian Basin from the mountains of its northwestern rim. In addition, the city receives water from the Irtysh River, over the Irtysh–Karamay Canal, which was officially opened in 2008.

A number of natural (Ailik Lake) and artificial (Fengcheng, Huangyangquan) reservoirs are located in Karamay's northeastern Urho District; they all are replenished, directly or indirectly, by water from the Irtysh–Karamay Canal.

Climate
Karamay has an extremely continental desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWk), typified by great seasonal extremes in temperature, varying by 43.0 C-change; with long, very hot summers (for its latitude) and long, severely cold winters with brief spring and autumn in between. The monthly 24-hour average temperature is −15.2 °C in January and soars to 27.8 °C in July and the annual mean is 8.91 °C, warmer than most places at the corresponding latitude, due to the long summers. Annual precipitation is 119 mm and the summer months record the most rainfall, despite relative humidity levels averaging around 30%. With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 37% in December to 71% in September, sunshine is generous, only occurring less than 50% of the time in November and December and the annual average total is 2,694 hours.

Demographics
According to the 2010 census, over 80% of Karamay's population are Han Chinese, with minorities such as Uighur, Kazakhs, Mongols and Hui making up the rest. The population of 2010 is 391,008, a rise from the 270,232 of 2000 census. The population density is 50.6 inhabitants per km2. The 2015 population estimate is 401,468.


 * Population by ethnicity (2010)

Economy


In 1955, one of the largest oil fields in China was discovered there. Since then, the city has grown into an oil-producing and refining center.

In 2008, the GDP reached ¥66.1 billion and GDP per capita reached ¥242,391 (US$34,901), ranking first among 659 cities in mainland China.

Transport

 * Kuytun–Beitun Railway. There are passenger stations in Karamay itself and in Wuwu New Town (五五新镇街道), south of central Karamay.
 * Karamay–Tacheng Railway (under construction as of 2017)
 * Kelamayi Guhai Airport
 * China National Highway 217

Notable persons

 * Adil Mijit, comedian
 * Gulimina Mahamuti, pianist