Urban immigrant enclave

To understand why Tanggula Town is called the largest "enclave" in China, we must first understand what an "enclave" is. Many people may not understand this word when they see it. What does this mean? Let me give you a brief introduction. The so-called "enclave" means that the jurisdiction of a town belongs to a province or directly under its jurisdiction, but this land is at a distance from the province or district under its jurisdiction, or crosses another province or district, and is not in that province or district. This phenomenon is named "enclave".

Tanggula Town is one of the "enclaves" and the largest town in all enclaves, even larger than Taiwan Province Province. Tanggula Town is located in the southwest of Qinghai Province. Although the administrative division belongs to Golmud City, Haixi Autonomous Prefecture, there is a state called Yushu Prefecture between it and the administrative subject of Golmud City. Mount Tanggula covers an area of 47,500 square kilometers, which is larger than the island of Taiwan Province Province and is the largest enclave in China.

Why is Tanggula Town not in the area it belongs to, but in Yushu Prefecture, Qinghai Province? This may be caused by some railways built a long time ago and transportation problems of oil, natural gas and so on. At that time, for the convenience of management, this area was temporarily assigned to Golmud City, Haixi Prefecture, but was separated by Yushu Prefecture.

Tanggula town is more than just an enclave. There are many other towns and villages in Tanggula town. Although these towns are located in Yushu Prefecture, Qinghai Province and have jurisdiction in another state, the people and managers in these towns belong to Tibet and are not under the jurisdiction of Qinghai Province. This reason is also some disasters many years ago. There was a snowstorm at that time, and in order to resettle the people in the disaster area, some areas of Qinghai Province were temporarily borrowed. Over time, these immigrants did not move away, forming this complex enclave phenomenon.