Where is the largest karez group in the world?

Turpan has the famous Karez well, which ranks as one of the three major projects alongside the Great Wall and the Canal. Karez leads to an underground river, turning the desert into an oasis. After Turpan was turned into a tourist area, in order to receive tourists from home and abroad and show her charming side to tourists from five continents, various cultural and sightseeing service facilities with elegant, simple and rich Islamic architectural art style were built.

Kanerjing group

Turpan, known as the "volcanic island" and "wind reservoir", has an extremely dry climate and has a large oasis for a long time. One of the mysteries is that there are karez groups and an undercurrent network extending in all directions like human blood in Turpan Basin.

Underground canal

Karez, Wan Li Great Wall and Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal are also known as the three major ancient projects in China, which were called "wells and canals" in ancient times. Xinjiang Karez is mainly distributed in Turpan Basin, Hami and He Lei, especially in Turpan, with more than 1,000 wells. If connected, it is 5000 kilometers long, so some people call it an "underground canal". "Kaner", or well hole, was created by local people by absorbing the "well canal method" of the mainland. It introduces the rich groundwater in the basin into the surface irrigation by artificially digging underground channels. Karez consists of shaft, culvert and open channel. At the edge of the basin, several vertical shafts are drilled from high to low, and then the vertical shafts are dug through the boundary one by one from underground to draw water out of the ground.

Monument to wisdom

Karez is a sewer project created by working people according to local climate, hydrological characteristics and other ecological conditions in order to improve their own viability. There are about 1.600 karez wells in Xinjiang, which are distributed in Turpan basin, Hami basin, Pishan and Kuche in southern Xinjiang, Qitai and Fukang in northern Xinjiang, among which Turpan basin is the most concentrated, reaching more than 1.200, with a total length of more than 5,000 kilometers. People who have visited Karez are all amazed at its ingenious design and arduous project. It is the crystallization of the wisdom of the people of all ethnic groups in China and a monument to hard work! If you go swimming in Turpan, when the bus is near the county seat of Turpan, on the Gobi desert outside the lush oasis, you can see piles of round soil bags descending along the high slope, shaped like small volcanic cones, sitting in an orderly way and extending to the oasis. These are the shaft openings of Karez. If you look down from the air, these mounds are like pearls strung together, showing Turpan, an ancient and youthful place.

physical geography

The reason why Karez can be built in Turpan is inseparable from the geographical conditions here. Bogda Mountain in the north of Turpan Basin and Keloucheng Mountain in the west, whenever summer comes, a lot of snowmelt and rainwater flow to the basin. Water flows out of the mountain pass and quickly penetrates into the underground Gobi, becoming an undercurrent. Long-term accumulation, the aquifer under Gobi is thickened and the water reserves are large, which provides a rich water source for Karez. Deep in Turpan desert, gravel is cemented by clay or calcium, and its texture is solid, so Karez well is not easy to collapse after being dug. Turpan is dry and hot, with a large amount of water evaporation. In windy season, the dust is everywhere, the wind often stops, and the canal is often submerged by yellow sand. Karez, on the other hand, transports water through underground culverts, which is not affected by seasons and sandstorms, with small evaporation and stable flow, and can be irrigated by gravity all the year round. So Karez is very suitable for local natural conditions.

Irrigation system

Karez is a special irrigation system with ingenious structure. It consists of shaft, culvert, open channel and waterlogging dam (a small reservoir). Generally, the depth of shaft and the distance between wells are that the deeper the shaft goes upstream, the longer the spacing is, about 30 to 70 meters, and the shallower the shaft goes downstream, the shorter the spacing is, about 10 to 20 meters. Shaft is used for ventilation and soil lifting when digging and repairing karez. The culvert outlet is connected with the open channel on the ground, which can lead the groundwater with a depth of tens of meters to the ground.

Karez history

Karez has a long history. In the Han Dynasty, there was an underground pit and well technology in Guanzhong, Shaanxi Province, which was called "well and canal method". After the Han Dynasty passed through the Western Regions, there was a lack of water outside the Great Wall, and the sand was loose and easy to collapse, so the "well drainage method" was taught to the locals. Through the hard work of people of all ethnic groups, it has been gradually improved and developed into a karez suitable for Xinjiang. Most of the existing Karez wells in Turpan were built in the Qing Dynasty. According to historical records, due to the advocacy of the Qing government and the adoption of reclamation measures, Karez has been greatly developed. Lin Zexu, a patriotic minister who was exiled to Xinjiang in the late Qing Dynasty for resolutely banning smoking, praised Karez in Turpan. 1845 (twenty-five years of Qing Daoguang) In the first month, Lin Zexu went to the southern foot of Tianshan Mountain for exploration and land reclamation, passing through Turpan County, and wrote in his diary that day: "It is incredible to see many pits along the way and ask their names. It is said that the' stuck well' can lead the water in the south to cross flow, and the water will gradually increase, and the water will flow through the holes in the soil!" The clear spring irrigation of Karejing moistens the land of Turpan, turning the Gobi in Huozhou into an oasis fertile field, producing grapes, melons and fruits, grain, cotton and oil, which is well-known at home and abroad. Now, although Turpan has built new canals and reservoirs, Karez still plays a special role as the fountain of life in the modernization drive.

Hundred years old well

Most of the existing karez wells in Turpan have been built and maintained since the Qing Dynasty, and the old wells have a history of 100 years. 1845, when Lin zexu surveyed Turpan water conservancy, he once marveled in his diary that this strange project was "an incredible thing".