Qiqihar

關於Qiqihar

Qiqihar (also spelled Tsitsihar) is the second-largest city in the Heilongjiang province of China, in the west central part of the province. The built-up (or metro) area made up of Longsha, Tiefeng and Jianhua districts had 959,787 inhabitants, while the total population of the prefecture-level city was shrinking to 4,067,489 as of the 2020 census (5,367,003 as of 2010). In 2024, the total registered population of the city will be 5.06 million. Among them, the rural population is 3.165 million. These are mainly Han Chinese, though the city is also home to thirty-four minorities including Manchus, Daur, and Mongols. Numerous wetlands are close to Qiqihar, including the Zhalong Nature Reserve, famous in China for being home to numerous red-crowned cranes.

"Qiqihar" is a Dagur word meaning "border" or "natural pasture". The name Qiqihar comes from Manchu: ᠴᡳᠴᡳᡥᠠᡵ, Möllendorff: Cicihar, Abkai: Qiqihar, IPA: /t͡ɕʰi.t͡ɕʰi.χar/.

The region was originally settled by nomadic Daur and Tungus herdsmen. The city's original name was Bukui (卜奎), the Chinese transcription of a Dagur word meaning "auspicious". The city's oldest mosque, the Bukui Mosque...

Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.