Current Time in Karamay, China

Karamay lies in the north-western corner of China, in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, on the arid rim of the Junggar Basin between the Gobi gravel plains and the foothills of the Zhunggar Alatau. Its name comes from the Uygur words for black oil, a reference to the natural asphalt seeps at the Black Oil Mountain on the edge of town, where petroleum has bubbled to the surface for thousands of years. Around half a million people live in the city and its outlying districts.

Karamay is China's oil city in the most literal sense. In 1955 prospectors struck the first large oil field discovered in the People's Republic here, and the settlement that grew around the wells was formally established as a city in 1958. Almost everything about the place follows from that decision: the broad boulevards, the planned residential blocks, the refineries and pipeline yards on the horizon, and one of the highest levels of income per head of any city in China. The oil and petrochemical company that operates the field remains by far the largest employer, and the region also produces natural gas and, more recently, hosts large data centres that take advantage of cheap power and a cool, dry climate.

The city was built on desert, and water had to be brought to it. A long diversion canal from the Irtysh River made possible the Karamay River scenic belt, an artificial waterway with lawns, fountains and willow-lined promenades running through the centre, floodlit at night and startling in the middle of such a landscape. The Black Oil Mountain park preserves the first well and the pumping equipment of the early years, and a museum tells the story of the pioneering crews who lived in dugouts and felt tents.

The most spectacular attraction lies outside the city. At Urho, the wind has carved the sandstone and mudstone of an ancient lake bed into ridges, towers and hollows, a yardang landscape known as the Ghost City because the wind moans through the formations at night. Filmmakers have used it repeatedly, and it is one of the finest wind-eroded landscapes in Asia. Nearby are fossil beds, a world-class wind farm and the Aiweiergou canyon.

Karamay is a modern, multi-ethnic city, with Han, Uygur, Kazakh, Hui and Mongol residents, and its restaurants reflect that mixture, from hand-pulled noodles and lamb kebabs to Sichuan hotpot. Winters are long and severely cold, summers hot and dusty.

An airport, expressways and a railway connect the city to Urumqi, roughly three hundred kilometres to the south-east, and a campus of the China University of Petroleum trains engineers on site.

Purpose-built, prosperous and set against extraordinary desert scenery, Karamay is one of the most distinctive cities of western China.