Are Yili and Yining the same place?

Yili and Yining are not the same place. Yili is the abbreviation of Yili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. Yili governs Tacheng area and Altay area, and directly governs 3 county-level cities, 7 counties and/kloc-0 autonomous counties, among which county-level cities include Yining City.

Extended data:

Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture, located in Ili Valley of North Tianshan Mountain in the west of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, was founded in 1954. It is the only autonomous prefecture in China that manages both prefecture-level and county-level administrative regions, and the only sub-provincial autonomous prefecture in China.

China's largest land trade port, Horgos Port, is located in the western part of Yili Prefecture, which borders Kazakhstan, a Central Asian country. There are the fourth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth divisions of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, Xinjiang Mining and Metallurgy Bureau, Tianxin Xilin Industrial Bureau, Ashan Forestry Bureau, Xinjiang Cigarette Factory, Axi Gold Mine and other units directly under the central and autonomous regions.

Yili is known as "South of the Great Wall", "Central Asia Wet Island" and "Flower City", and Yining City is the capital of Yili Prefecture. Quanzhou, with a total area of 350,000 square kilometers and abundant rainfall, is known as the wet island of Central Asia or the south of the Yangtze River beyond the Great Wall.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia-Ilikazak Autonomous Prefecture