If you ask which city in China has the highest level of people's wealth? Many people think it's Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou or Hangzhou. The Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta are the most economically developed regions in China, with many enterprises, active business and talents, and they are also the most prosperous and prosperous places in China.
Last year, Shanghai's GDP was as high as 4With 72 trillion yuan, the total economic output ranks first in the country, and it ranks first among cities in the country. However, if we talk about per capita GDP, based on Shanghai's 24.8 million permanent residents, it will not rank among the top five in the country on average. So which city is the richest per capita in China?
The answer may be surprising, it is not Shanghai, not Beijing, not Shenzhen, not Hangzhou, not even in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, but a small city located on the Gobi Desert in the northwest - Karamay.
Many people don't know much about this small city located in the northwest, Karamay is located in the northwest of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, surrounded by the Tacheng area, the city covers an area of 7,733 square kilometers, under the jurisdiction of 4 districts, the total population is only 490,000; Most of the land in the territory is the Gobi Desert, which is dry and rainless all year round, and the temperature changes drastically in cold and summer.
As early as 2020, Karamay's total GDP was 88.7 billion yuan, although it may not seem high, but the per capita GDP has reached 190,000 yuan, far exceeding the national average of 3The per capita level of 20,000 yuan has left Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou far behind.
Although Shenzhen ranked first in per capita GDP that year, this was only the first time that Shenzhen surpassed Karamay and only led by a narrow margin.
In 2021 and 2022, Karamay's per capita GDP will reach more than 210,000 yuan, tied for the top spot with Ordos, becoming the most dazzling "twin star" of China's economy, leaving other big cities behind, Beijing ranks fourth, and Shanghai and Shenzhen are even more behind.
Looking back further, for most of the past 30 years, Karamay has been the largest city in the country in terms of GDP per capita, and it is deservedly the city with the highest level of people's wealth.
How does this small city located on the Gobi Desert in the northwest create a per capita income that can be compared with that of first-tier cities? The main reason is that people have "mines" at home.
The reason why the land in the Middle East countries is so barren, but they are all so rich, is because people have mines, and they only rely on oil and natural gas, and the people of the whole country have no worries about food and clothing.
Oil is regarded as the blood of modern industry, has become the economic lifeblood of a modern country, and plays a vital role in the economic development of a country.
In the past 60 years, the Karamay oilfield has accumulated proven reserves of 2.6 billion tons and produced more than 300 million tons. In addition, there are 2With 1 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, Karamay has already earned a lot of money from oil and gas revenues alone.
The total population of the city is only 490,000, so on average, the per capita is very prominent, and it is precisely because of the small population and high income that Karamay is far ahead of the per capita GDP.
Karamay Oilfield is the first large-scale oilfield to be explored and developed after the founding of the People's Republic of China. More than two kilometers away from the city center, there is a "black oil mountain", which is the first place where oil seedlings were found in Karamay.
Black Oil Mountain is not a mountain, but a group of asphalt hills, which is the underground oil due to the change of the earth's crust, squeezed by the formation, along the stone crevices continue to seep to the surface, the light part of the oil volatilizes, and the remaining thick liquid and sand condense into a small hill.
The spilled oil forms small pools of oil with a dark color and precious low-condensate oil. If someone stomps on the edge of the pool, the pool will immediately bubble.
Geologists have found that the Black Oil Mountain began to spill oil as early as 200 million years ago.
The discovery of the Karamay oil field was also quite unexpected! In the 50s of the last century, China's science and technology were still very backward, and the oil survey team had not made progress in Xinjiang for many years.
This old Uyghur named Sailim often rode a donkey to wander in the Gobi Desert, once he found a black hill, approached and found that there seemed to be a spring on the top of the hill, from time to time there was a black viscous liquid coming out of it, but I don't know what, he used the gourd he carried with him to pack some, and tried to use a cloth dipped in a little rubbing in the wheel, the wheels immediately did not creak, and the car was brisk. When I went home, I could use it as lamp oil, and the villagers felt curious and spread it around.
At that time, the Chinese oil explorers who were looking for oil heard the news and found the old man Sailim, and under his leadership, they successfully found the "black oil mountain". When the oil exploration team members saw the "Black Oil Mountain", they were surprised and excited. At this point, the Karamay oil field was discovered.
In 1955, the Xinjiang Petroleum Company was established, and Soviet experts and Chinese experts joined forces to explore the Black Oil Mountain. ”
Since then, the Karamay Oilfield has been developed in the 50s, developed in the 70s, taken off in the 80s, innovated in the 90s, and achieved fruitful results, and in 2002, the first output exceeded 10 million tons, becoming the first large oilfield in western China with an output of tens of millions of tons.
The Karamay Oilfield is more than 150 kilometers long from north to south, so it is also named "Baili Oilfield". As far as the eye can see, the vast Gobi Desert is full of oil production derricks, as well as endless "kowtow machines", operating 24 hours a day, this hundred miles of oil fields, but also gave birth to the city of Karamay!
Although the Karamay oil field has been exploited for more than 60 years, with an annual oil production of 10 million tons, experts**, it is still vigorous and can continue to be exploited for hundreds of years.
In 1958, for the development of the oil industry, the city of Karamay was established, and since then, a city full of hope has risen in the Gobi Desert!
The abundant oil resources have injected great impetus into the development of the city, and oil workers from all over the country have come here, bringing vitality to the new city, and the city is becoming more and more prosperous and the economy is advancing by leaps and bounds.
After decades of arduous construction, Karamay, a small city of less than 500,000 people, has become the richest city for Chinese with its rich oil revenue. Properly rich and flowing, known as the "Oriental Little Dubai".
Karamay is "born of oil", and while extracting oil, it also does not forget the construction of an ecological city. At that time, the singer Lu Wenke wrote a song "Song of Karamay": "Ah Karamay, I don't want to walk into you, you have no grass and no water, and you don't even fly birds; You have no singing, no flowers, no people; O Karamay, you desolate land, I turn my face away."
It can be seen that this place was desolate back then!
In order to improve living conditions, the local government has invested heavily in the introduction of water from the Irtysh River, and built an artificial river with a total length of more than 8 kilometers through the urban area, which not only becomes a landscape river, but also solves the problem of water use for residents, and plays a role in irrigation and regulating the microclimate.
Along the banks of the river, there are green trees, flowers and plants, and on the green promenade that can not be seen at a glance, there are fountains, parks, and modern residences, which are no different from other humid cities, and the greening rate of the whole city has been as high as 45%. Who would have thought that this place was once a barren Gobi Desert.
All these changes are the result of the hard work of generations of Karamay people, and they have also paid unimaginable hardships and hardships. Today, Karamay has won many city honors such as National Garden City, China Excellent Tourism City, and Chinese Habitat Environment Model Award.
From the barren Gobi Desert with no grass and no water to a pastoral city with abundant water and grass, a modern and livable city where the people live and work in peace and contentment, Karamay has transformed into a Gobi pearl that "looks like the south of the Yangtze River outside the plug and sings at night without fishing boats".