Scenic area crammed with resources

The Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture is located in northwestern Sichuan and the southeast side of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. It covers an area of 84,200 square kilometers with a population of 920,000.

It is the second-largest Tibetan region in Sichuan province and a major area inhabited by the Qiang ethnic group.

Aba is endowed with a wonderful landscape. It boasts three of the world’s natural heritage sites such as Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong, 10 national forest parks, five national wetland parks and 25 natural reserves.

It was praised by world travel experts as one of the world’s best ecological tourism destinations.

Aba is also a corridor of ethnic culture, housing blockhouseshaped buildings of the Tibetan and Qiang ethnic groups that are prized as models of stone buildings.

Aba abounds in resources and is a water reservation region in the upper reaches of Yangtze and Yellow rivers. It has minerals such as gold, uranium, lithium, silicon and iron and grows premium and rare fruits.

It is one of China’s five major pastures and is known as a natural drug store, being home to more than 1,900 kinds of traditional Chinese medicine materials.

Aba has changed greatly since it was founded more than six decades ago. Its GDP has increased from 24 million yuan in 1952 to 30.4 billion yuan in 2018 and its road mileage exceeds 13,000 kilometers.

Last year, the prefecture’s farmers and herdsmen saw their net income reach 12,920 yuan per capita; the number of schools rose from 245 just after the prefecture’s foundation to 676.

In the beginning, the prefecture only had six medical clinics and 25 medical workers. By late 2018, it was home to 1,682 health agencies and more than 7,000 health personnel.