Yengisar County

Yengisar County    (formerly transliterated as Yangi Hissar, from يېڭىسار ناھىيىسى ), also known as Yingjisha County, is a county of Kashgar Prefecture in southwest Xinjiang, China. It covers an area of 3373 km2. As of the 2002 census, it had a population of 230,000.

The county seat is the city of Yengisar, a town well known among the local Uyghurs for its handmade knives. The finely-tuned skill of knife-making used to be passed down among generations in Yengisar, but it is slowly dying due to China's strict response to deadly clashes in Xinjiang.

History
In 1499, Ahmad Alaq seized Kashgar and Yengisar from Mirza Abu Bakr Dughlat.

In 1847 and again in 1857, Kashgar and Yengisar were captured.

In 1882, Yengisar Independent Subprefecture (英吉沙直隸廳) was created.

In 1913, Yengisar Independent Subprefecture became Yengisar County.

The Battle of Yangi Hissar took place here in April 1934, when Ma Zhancang led the Chinese Muslim 36th division to attack the Turkic Muslim Uighur forces at Yangi Hissar, wiping out the entire Uighur force of 500 and killing the Emir Nur Ahmad Jan Bughra.

In 1955, Barin, Jamaterek and Ujme were transferred from Yengisar County to Akto County.

In September 2017, Horigul Nasir, then 21, was jailed for ten years for allegedly promoting the wearing of head scarves. Her brother Yusupjan Nasir was subsequently demoted from his position as an assistant officer of the Saghan township police office to a security guard at the township's Family Planning Department.

Administrative Divisions
Yengisar County included 4 towns, 10 townships, and two other areas:

Economy
, there was about 72,700 acres (480,014 mu) of cultivated land in Yengisar.

Demographics
As of 2015, 297,290 of the 302,542 residents of the county were Uyghur, 25,404 were Han Chinese and 851 were from other ethnic groups.

As of 1999, 97.82% of the population of Yengisar (Yingjisha) County was Uyghur and 1.79% of the population was Han Chinese.

Transportation
Yengisar is served by China National Highway 315 and the Southern Xinjiang railway.

Wildlife
The city of Yengisar gave its name to Yangihissar gecko (Cyrtopodion elongatum) lizard species, which occurs throughout eastern Central Asia, including Xinjiang and Gansu Province.

Notable persons

 * Isa Alptekin, Uyghur nationalist
 * Erkin Alptekin, 1st President of the World Uyghur Congress
 * Arken Imirbaki
 * Yulbars Khan