Khorgas

Korgas
霍尔果斯市
قورغاس شەھىرى
County-level city
China-Kazakhstan border crossing at Korgas
Korgas
Location in Xinjiang
Coordinates: 44°07′32″N 80°24′52″E / 44.12556°N 80.41444°E / 44.12556; 80.41444Coordinates: 44°07′32″N 80°24′52″E / 44.12556°N 80.41444°E / 44.12556; 80.41444
Country People's Republic of China
Autonomous Region Xinjiang
Autonomous prefecture Ili
Area
 • Total 1,900 km2 (700 sq mi)
Population (2014)
 • Total 85,000
Time zone UTC+8 (China Standard Time)
Khorgos Soviet-Chinese frontier post (1984)
The 1758 Victory of Khorgos, a 1774 engraving by Jacques-Philippe Le Bas (1707-1783), after Jean-Denis Attiret (1702-1768). Musée Guimet, Paris.[1]

Khorgas, officially known as Korgas[2] (simplified Chinese: 霍尔果斯; traditional Chinese: 霍爾果斯; pinyin: Huò'ěrguǒsī, Kazakh: قورعاس, translit. Qorğas), also known as Khorgos, Chorgos and Gorgos, formerly Gongchen (拱宸城), is a Chinese city near the border with Kazakhstan. It is located in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The city on the Kazakh side of the border is also known as Khorgas (Kazakh: Қорғас, قورغاس‎, Qorğas; Russian: Хоргос, Khorgos; the train station there is Altynkol (Russian: Алтынколь).

This city is another hub of the New Eurasian Land Bridge besides the Alataw Pass.

Transportation

The Jinghe–Yining–Khorgos railway was completed in late 2009, and now provides train service from Ürümqi and Yining to Khorgas.[3]

Passenger trains from Ürümqi (started on July 1, 2010), however, initially only ran to Yining, and not all the way to Khorgas.[4][5] One of the daily Ürümqi-Yining passenger trains was extended to Khorgas in December 2013. The travel time from Khorgos to Yining is just over an hour.[6]

In December 2011, a 293-km railway from the Khorgas border crossing to Zhetygen terminal (near Almaty) was completed; the tracks from the Chinese and Kazakhstan sides of the borders were connected on December 2, 2012.[7] For some months, the railway on the Kazakh side was still operating in a test mode.[8] The railway border crossing (port of entry) at Khorgas became operational in the late 2012;[9]) the first regular trains from the two countries crossed the border on December 22, 2012.[7]

The railway border crossing is expected to handle up to 15 million tons of freight per year initially, the volume rising to 30 million tons per year in the long run,[7] opening up the second Europe-China rail link via Kazakhstan.[10]

41-ton gantry cranes are used to move shipping containers between standard gauge Chinese trains and Russian gauge Kazakh trains.[11]

In June 2017, the Ürümqi Railway Bureau of the China Railway started daily passenger service from Ürümqi to Astana via Khorgas.[12]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Victory of Khorgos
  2. ↑ The official spelling according to Zhōngguó dìmínglù 中国地名录 (Beijing, SinoMaps Press 中国地图出版社 1997); ISBN 7-5031-1718-4
  3. ↑ "Xingjiang's first electrified railway rails laid". People's Daily Online. 2009-09-17. Retrieved 2012-03-13.
  4. ↑ Zhaoqian, ed. (2010-06-22). "Tickets of train from Urumqi to Yining put on sale". Tianshannet. Archived from the original on 2012-02-29. Retrieved 2012-03-13.
  5. ↑ "Xinjiang's first electrified railway passenger train". China Central Television. 2010-07-07. Retrieved 2012-03-13.
  6. ↑ 霍尔果斯往乌鲁木齐方向首趟客运列车正式开通 (The first Khorgas-Ürümqi passenger train started regular operations), 2013-12-26
  7. 1 2 3 写在中国霍尔果斯至哈萨克斯坦阿腾科里铁路通车运营之际, 2012-12-23
  8. ↑ Хоргос-Жетыген: уже летом первые поезда соединят Китай с Европой (Already this summer first trains will connect China with Europe), 2012-03-16 (in Russian)
  9. ↑ 新疆霍尔果斯火车站获批成立 年底有望通车 Archived 2013-07-29 at the Wayback Machine., 中国新闻网, 2012-11-23
  10. ↑ Revival of the Silk Road
  11. ↑ Shepard, Wade (2017-02-20), "Khorgos: The New Silk Road's Central Station Comes To Life", Forbes blogs
  12. ↑ 今夏可坐火车去哈萨克斯坦游玩 (This summer, one can visit Kazakhstan by train)
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