Delingha

Delingha is the seat of the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, a remote oasis city on the edge of the Qaidam Basin in northwestern Qinghai. Its economy rests on potash and lithium extraction from the basin's salt lakes, alongside goji berry cultivation, wind and solar power generation, and a growing desert-and-lake tourism trade. The city has no major university of its own, but it hosts a branch of the Qinghai Open University and sends most students onward to Xining or beyond for higher education. Delingha is best known internationally through the poet Hai Zi, whose 1988 poem 'Delingha, Night' turned the city's name into a byword for Chinese lyric melancholy, and locally for the turquoise waters of Keluke and Toson Lakes that draw photographers from across the country.