Darya Boyi - A "disappearing" village in Xinjiang

[Randy W]

Darya Boyi is a village that is so remote that there are no roads to it for several hundred kilometers. Many of its residents have never left the village. It is China's largest village at 2,000 square kilometers. The village is approximately 400 years old. It may be cheaper - and easier - to relocate the remaining residents rather than to try to connect them to the modern world.

It does not show on maps. "Rivers" in the area tend to run dry, except during the rainy season.

Information and photographs for this post came from East Tour China, CGTN.com, and Google and Mapcarta maps. Mapcarta is the only source I saw that identified its location.

CGTN is China Global Television Network - China’s new international media organization, formerly known as CCTV News.

Map and satellite images from Google and Mapcarta, with added annotations to show Darya Boyi

 

 

 

 

Darya Boyi has only trees, sand and livestock. Farming is not an option. And building roads needs money and time. For a quick solution, relocation seems the easiest.

The herders' way of life will soon end. But old villagers, like Zibidehan, want to stay in Darya Boyi.

 

 

 

 

The video is from CGTN America

 

 

Read more at Explore Xinjiang’s 400 Years Old Hidden Village Darya Boyi (Easy Tours China), or The case of the disappearing village in Xinjiang (CGTN.com)

[True Blue]

Great post, Randy.

 

The remote location and the villager's insistence to live there and not relocate put me in mind of this Sam Kinison bit on World Hunger

 

[Randy W]

An update from the People's Daily, dated January 05, 2021

Desert village in NW China's Xinjiang relocated for poverty alleviation, embraces prosperous life

The aerial photo shows the relocation site of Darya Boyi village of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (People’s Daily Online/Gao Yayong)
 

Quote

 

The per capital annual income of the residents in the village surged to 9,136 yuan (nearly $1,400) from 3,200 yuan six years ago. All 287 impoverished households have been lifted out of poverty, pulling down the poverty headcount ratio to zero.

Darya Boyi, with almost 80 percent of all its 1,404 residents suffering from poverty, is the only administrative village in Darya Boyi Township, according to Wang Fang, deputy Party head of Darya Boyi Township, who is responsible for poverty alleviation work there.

Situated in the heart of the Taklimakan Desert, the township is bothered by declining underground water level and frequent sandstorms, which has made it increasingly inhospitable in recent years. Relocating the villagers to a new settlement remained the only way out.

Two rounds of relocation were carried out for the village in 2017 and 2019, after a poverty alleviation relocation site was established 91 kilometers away from the township. The last batch of villagers moved to the new site on Sept. 27, 2019. By that time, Xinjiang had finished all of its poverty alleviation relocation missions required by China's 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020), moving nearly 170,000 residents to new homes.

Currently, the relocation site has 422 laborers, 346 of whom are working near their homes and 29 outside of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Wang introduced.

 . . .

Rural tourism has been on the rise at the original site of the village, where the unique desert culture and traditions are attracting many visitors. Fifty bed and breakfast businesses have been built there, and a tourism cooperative is offering stable jobs for 50 households, each of which can earn 16,000 yuan on an annual basis.