A 605.5-kilometer border with the People's Republic of Mongolia in the north, and the eastern Tianshan Mountains in the middle mark two definitive lines across Hami Prefecture, which is located in the eastern part of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and covers an area of 137,600 square kilometers.

The city of Hami, 595 kilometers from Urumqi and with an average elevation of 760 meters, covers an area of 79,000 square kilometers with an urban area of twenty-three square kilometers.

Hami (Qumul )was called as Kunmo in ancientry, was called Yiwulu in Han Dynasty, set up Yihe Duwei in Western Han Dynasty, set up Yiwu shire in Northern Wei Dynasty, set up Yiwu shire and Rouyuan town in Sui Dynasty, set up Xiyi prefecture in Tang Dynasty, later renamed as Yizhou prefecture, was called Hami in Yuan Dynasty, belonged to Gansu province, set up Hamiwei Yongle in Ming Dynasty. Qianlong 24th year (1759) set up Hami office, was promoted into directly under office in Guangxu 10th year(1884),2nd year in the republic of the China(1913) renamed office as county.

Hami city has long history, is made up of old city and new city. The old city was built in Yongzheng 5th year (1727) in Qing Dynasty, it is said that it is ruins of Tang Dynasty, later was destroyed by stage and uprising of Huis. It was rebuilt in Guangxu 10th year(1884),is enlarged two times than primary city, lies in southwest of old city. The new city was built in Tongzhi 7th year(1868),was built by amban Wenlin of Hami who organized mIlitary. Zuo Zongtang stationed Hami in June in 1880, headquarters was set up in the new city.

Hami Prefecture has a population of 400,000 of which the Han nationality makes up 67 percent and other minority nationalities 33 percent. The city of Hami includes 24 nationalities in its population of 300,000. The Han nationality accounts for 66 percent, the Uygur 26 percent, the Kazak 2.7 percent, the Hui 3.7 percent and the other 0.4 percent is made up of the Mongol, Manchu, Tibetan, Xibe, Ozbek, Yugur and Kirgiz nationalities.

Hami City has under its administration two towns (Qijiaojing and Yamansu), three neighborhood committees (Donghe, Xihe, Xinshi), two districts (Qinchen, Tianshan) and twenty-one townships.

PLACES TO VISIT IN QUMUL

TRANSPORTATION TO AND WITHIN QUMUL

By train:
It is 8 hours distance from Qumul to Urumqi by train. A hard sleeper ticket costs RMB80 and a soft sleeper costs RMB150. Tickets can be bought from the ticket office outside the train station in Qumul. There are several trains which from inlan cities passed through the Qumul .

By bus:
There are bus between Urumqi and  Qumul once an hour . Also buses are availible from Qumul to the other inland cities.

CLIMATE AND NATURAL RESOURCES

With the Tianshan Mountains lying across its middle, Hami Prefecture has a few different climates. Generally, the climate of Hami is characterized by drought, change ability of temperature is 14.7??. The annual mean sunshine time is 3,234 hours, the longest in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The annual rainfall is 33.8 millimeters. The frost-free period in the area south of the Tianshan Mountains is 184 days. The prefecture has 586,400 hectares of forest. The prefecture has 1.73 billion cubic meters of exploitable water resources with a hydroelectric resources of 116,000 kilowatts (preliminary estimate). The waterpower resources exploited at present are less than one thirtieth of that total.