Sunan Yugur Autonomous County

Sunan Yugur Autonomous County governs five townships, three towns, 102 administrative villages and three urban communities. It spans an area of 23,800 square kilometers, and is home to a total population of 28,000. It is the only Yugur autonomous county in China and unique in Gansu.

The county boasts an important ecological status. Seventy-five percent of the area along the northern foot of Qilian Mountains, 25.3 percent of the Qilian Mountains National Park, and 59.3 percent of the Qilian Mountains National Nature Reserve are within the county. With 964 glaciers, 330,000 hectares of water conservation forests, and 155,000 hectares of wetland, the county is an important water source in the Yellow River Basin and a priority area for biodiversity protection in China.

The county is rich in grasslands and livestock. Its various types of grasslands cover an area of 1.785 million hectares, of which the area of usable grasslands is 1.395 million hectares. The number of domestic animals reaches 1.108 million, including 600,000 heads of Gansu alpine fine-wool, a breed of domesticated sheep from China. The county has an annual output of more than 650,000 livestock of various types, and is one of the major counties raising cattle and sheep in Gansu Province and a base of high-quality alpine fine wool sheep.

Sunan Yugur Autonomous County features a diversity of tourism resources. It has natural resources such as snow-capped glaciers, deserts, grasslands, forests, rivers, waterfalls, and Danxia landforms. It also has long-standing historical and cultural relics, unique Yugur ethnic customs, magnificent grotto mural art, and diverse religious culture. The county is one of China’s first all-for-one tourism demonstration units, and won many titles for its special folk customs and green ecological development. It has been identified as the "Chinese Folk Culture Photography Base" by the UNESCO and the China Folk Photography Association.

The county has abundant energy resources and is home to more than 30 kinds of metal and non-metallic minerals. It is endowed with ferrous and non-ferrous metal minerals in Gansu Province, and is one of the 12 key mining areas in China. The iron ore reserves are 160 million tons and over 400 million tons in the long run. The reserves of tungsten are 77,300 tons, molybdenum 46,000 tons, and dolomite 86 million tons. With a total of 33 rivers large and small, the county has a hydropower reserve of 2.04 million kilowatts and a developable capacity of about 1.2 million kilowatts. The usable land area for photovoltaic development is 18,000 hectares, and that for wind power development is 300 square kilometers. The planned installed capacity is 15,500 megawatts, including 13,700 megawatts of solar photovoltaic capacity and 1,800 megawatts of wind power capacity. The county strives to develop into a ten million kilowatt-level comprehensive energy demonstration base.

The county had a total GDP of 3.306 billion yuan as of 2021. In 2021, the per capita disposable income of the autonomous county’s urban residents totaled 33,531 yuan; the disposable income of rural residents totaled 21,783 yuan. In the next five years, based on its ecological, ethnic and cultural advantages, Sunan Yugur Autonomous County will highlight its positioning as the “Two Mountains” theoretical practice base, national prosperity demonstration corridor, and cultural and tourism site along the Silk Road, in a bid to build a beautiful, prosperous county by the improvement and growth in ecological progress, animal husbandry, industrial development, cultural tourism, and rule of law.