Country China | Area 1,900 km2 | |
Map of Khorgas
Korgas (simplified Chinese: 霍尔果斯; traditional Chinese: 霍爾果斯; pinyin: Huò'ěrguǒsī, Kazakh: قورعاس), also known as Khorgos, Chorgos and Gorgos, formerly Gongchen (拱宸城), is a Chinese city near the border with Kazakhstan. It is located in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture of Xinjiang Autonomous Region. The city on the Kazakh side of the border is also known as Khorgas (Kazakh: Қорғас, قورغاس, Qorğas; Russian: Хоргос, Khorgos; the train station there is Altynkol (Russian: Алтынколь).
Contents
Khorgas from border town to rising trade center
Khorgas from border town to rising trade center
Transportation
The Jinghe-Yining-Khorgas Railway was completed in late 2009, and now provides train service from Ürümqi and Yining to Khorgas.
Passenger trains from Ürümqi (started on July 1, 2010), however, initially only ran to Yining, and not all the way to Khorgas. One of the daily Ürümqi-Yining passenger trains was extended to Khorgas in December 2013. The travel time from Khorgos to Yining is just over an hour.
In December 2011, a 293-km railway from the Khorgas border crossing to Zhetygen terminal (near Almaty) was completed; the tracks from the Chinese and Kazakhstan sides of the borders were connected on December 2, 2012. For some months, the railway on the Kazakh side was still operating in a test mode. The railway border crossing (port of entry) at Khorgas became operational in the late 2012;) the first regular trains from the two countries crossed the border on December 22, 2012.
The railway border crossing is expected to handle up to 15 million tons of freight per year initially, the volume rising to 30 million tons per year in the long run, opening up the second Europe-China rail link via Kazakhstan.
41-ton gantry cranes are used to move shipping containers between standard gauge Chinese trains and Russian gauge Kazakh trains.
In June 2017, the Ürümqi Railway Bureau of the China Railways started daily passenger service from Ürümqi to Astana via Khorgas.