Population of Ningxia and the peculiarities of its integration into cultural space of China

There are a number of reasons why the north-west China should be considered as a specific region. On the one hand, it is the periphery zone of contacts of the Central Plain with the «barbarians», but, on the other hand, this region is very important for formation of Han ethnic group from the epoch of early empires up to the modern times. Before 1949, in Beijing region (at that time - Beiping), called Xuanwumen, there was the inscription «Fuxi Homeland; the spring of Yellow River and Five Sacred Mountains». Near there the community house of people immigrated from Gansu and Shaanxi was located. When the inscription was made, Gansu also included Ningxia and Qinghai. One of the founders of the Chinese nation and culture came from the northwest. In the same place the Yellow River has it source. Fuxi Temple is in Tianshui, Gansu. The legendary tomb of the Yellow Emperor (Huang-di) is located in Huangling district (urban district Yan’an, Shaanxi Province). In terms of modern geography, the north-western region of PRC consists of five administrative units, including Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang. It is reported in «Hanshu» (historical chronicle of Han dynasty from 260 BC to 20 AD) that in Qin and Han era the western territories were divided into more than thirty kingdoms. That is why «the thirty-six states of the Western Region» are often mentioned. In narrow sense, in the Han era the Western Region was understood as the territories to the east of the Pamir and the Baikal Lake, to the south of modern Xinjiang inclusive. Yuguan outpost (the west of present-day Gansu Province) was considered as one of the eastern points. However, if we study the problem precisely, it turns out to have many difficulties. Previously, the concept of «Northwest Territories» was often identified with the term «Northwest Frontier», although not all the territories were frontier indeed. From the Qin era the center of China was Xian and surrounding areas. Historically, the land of present-day South Gansu and nearly the whole of Shaanxi province were the domain of Qin as a part of the weak Eastern Zhou. Near there the Haojin (the capital of the Western Zhou kingdom in 1050-770 years BC, in the territory of present-day Chang’an district of Shaanxi province) was located. Afterwards, as we know, the Qin emperors collected under their authority the lands of China, including north-west.