A report on Xinjiang and Qinghai

The seventh-largest administrative district by area at 453700 km2, Gansu lies between the Tibetan and Loess plateaus and borders Mongolia (Govi-Altai Province), Inner Mongolia and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south and Shaanxi to the east.

The study also showed that there is a close genetic affinity among these ethnic minorities in Northwest China (including Uyghurs, Huis, Dongxiangs, Bonans, Yugurs and Salars) and that these cluster closely with other East Asian people, especially in Xinjiang, followed by Mongolic, and Tungusic speakers, indicating the probability of a shared recent common ancestor of "Altaic speakers".

Joseph Fletcher cited Turkic and Persian manuscripts related to the preaching of the 17th century Kashgarian Sufi master Muhammad Yūsuf (or, possibly, his son Afaq Khoja) inside the Ming Empire (in today's Gansu and/or Qinghai), where the preacher allegedly converted ulamā-yi Tunganiyyāh (i.e., "Dungan ulema") into Sufism.

However, this article refers specifically to two waves of uprising by various Chinese Muslims, mostly Hui people, in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia provinces in the first wave, and then in Xinjiang in the second wave, between 1862 and 1877.

When the Qing forces under Zuo Zongtang put down the Dungan Revolt, the sons of Muslim Hui and Salar rebel leaders like Ma Benyuan (马本源) and Ma Guiyuan (马桂源) in Ningxia, Gansu and Qinghai were castrated by the Qing Imperial Household Department once they became 11 years old and were sent to work as eunuch slaves for Qing garrisons in Xinjiang and the wives of the rebel leaders were also enslaved.

The Salar's live mostly in the Qinghai-Gansu border region, on both sides of the Yellow River, namely in Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Hualong Hui Autonomous County of Qinghai and the adjacent Jishishan Bonan, Dongxiang and Salar Autonomous County of Gansu and in some parts of Henan and Shanxi.

There are also Salars in Northern Xinjiang (in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture).

Northwest China is a statistical region of China which includes the autonomous regions of Xinjiang and Ningxia and the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai.

Qianlong personally led the Ten Great Campaigns to expand military control into present-day Xinjiang and Mongolia, putting down revolts and uprisings in Sichuan and parts of southern China while expanding control over Tibet.

Qinghai was also put under direct control of the Qing court.

Of the 22 provinces and 5 autonomous regions of the PRC, only 9 provinces (Yunnan, Guizhou, Qinghai, Heilongjiang, Sichuan, Gansu, Jilin, Hubei, Hunan) and 3 autonomous regions (Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia) have at least one or more second level or prefectural level divisions that are not prefectural level cities.

Oirats (Ойрад, Oirad, or Ойрд, Oird; ; in the past, also Eleuths) are the westernmost group of the Mongols whose ancestral home is in the Altai region of Siberia, Xinjiang and Western Mongolia.

At the request of the Gelug school, in 1637, Güshi Khan, the leader of the Khoshuts in Koko Nor, defeated Choghtu Khong Tayiji, the Khalkha prince who supported the Karma Kagyu school, and conquered Amdo (present-day Qinghai).

With the independence of Outer Mongolia, the Mongolian army controlled Khalkha and Khovd regions (modern day Uvs, Khovd, and Bayan-Ölgii provinces), but Northern Xinjiang (the Altai and Ili regions of the Qing Empire), Upper Mongolia, Barga and Inner Mongolia came under control of the newly formed Republic of China.

90,000 Upper Mongols (2010) — Qinghai region, China. The Khoshuts are the major subgroup of the Upper Mongols, along with the Choros, Khalkha and Torghuts.

In fact, it was during this rebellion that the Tang withdrew its western garrisons stationed in what is now Gansu and Qinghai, which the Tibetans then occupied along with the territory of what is now Xinjiang.