Get to know Tacheng
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- Administrative area
- County-level city · 县级市
- Part of
- Tacheng Prefecture
- Chinese name
- 塔城市
- Local areas
- County-level city guide
Area & population
- Area in the source
- 3,991.90 km²
- Population · 2020
- 158,098
- Administrative seat
- Heping Subdistrict
Source: cited geographic source, as of the dates shown.
History
The name shortens "Tarbagatai city" (塔尔巴哈台城), after the Tarbagatai Mountains (塔尔巴哈台山); Tarbagatai is Mongolian for "place where marmots appear". The older name, Chuhuchu (楚呼楚), means "wooden bowl" in Mongolian and was attached to a spring now inside the city Party compound. In 1765 the Qing official Agui (阿桂) asked the court to move the garrison at Yar (雅尔, now Urzhar in Kazakhstan) east; the town then laid out around the Chuhuchu spring was named Suijing (绥靖城) by the Qianlong Emperor. The same year Tarbagatai became an official trading point, where silk and tea from inner China were exchanged for Kazakh livestock. An 1851 trade agreement with Russia opened official trade through Baktu.
What to see
The Red Building (红楼), home of the Tacheng Prefecture Museum (塔城地区博物馆), was built from 1910 to 1914 for Ramazan Kanishev (热玛赞·坎尼雪夫), a Tatar merchant from Kazan, to a Russian design; it has two storeys, a green metal roof and rust-red street walls. The museum holds 8,070 items, six of them rated national first-class relics.
The city's accordion culture museum (手风琴文化展馆), about 2,000 square metres, was recognised in 2023 by Shanghai Great World Guinness as the largest accordion museum, and Tacheng has hosted five accordion festivals. A school built by Soviet residents in the 1940s, now inside the Fifth Primary School, reopened in 2013 as a museum of education history, oil painting and Russian folk culture. About 30 kilometres southwest of the city, the Kulustai grassland (库鲁斯台草原) is described by the city government as China's second-largest continuous plain pasture, with large stands of wild willow.
Food and local traditions
Several Tacheng traditions are on the national intangible heritage list: Russian house-building craft (2008), the Tatar Saban festival (2008), the Daur Woqibei (沃其贝节) ovoo-worship festival (2011), Russian tap dance (2021) and Tatar pastry-making (2021), whose cakes include bahali (巴哈力) and torte (托尔特).
Highlights
- Red Building (Tacheng Prefecture Museum) 塔城红楼博物馆: Built 1910-1914 for a Kazan Tatar merchant; holds 8,070 items.
- Tacheng Accordion Museum 手风琴博物馆: About 2,000 square metres; named the largest accordion museum by Shanghai Great World Guinness in 2023.
- Kulustai grassland 库鲁斯台草原: About 30 km southwest of the city, with wide pasture and wild willow groves.
- Tatar pastries 塔塔尔族传统糕点: Tatar pastry-making entered the national intangible heritage list in 2021.
Sources for this guide
地理环境_走进油画塔城_塔城市人民政府 · Tacheng City People's Government
民族风情_走进油画塔城_塔城市人民政府 · Tacheng City People's Government
历史沿革 | 遇见红楼|序篇 · Tacheng City People's Government
中国手风琴之城·塔城 · Tacheng City People's Government
塔城市历史沿革 · Tacheng City People's Government
Original English written from the listed sources and checked sentence by sentence against quoted extracts by a separate reviewer. Updated 2026-09-25.
Explore Tacheng
Core places to explore, with English and Chinese names.
Places to explore around Tacheng
An exhibition wall relief inside the Tacheng Red Building Museum, Tacheng · 塔城市塔城红楼博物馆内《风雨彩虹》塔城爱国历史教育陈列展浮雕 Source-recorded photograph date: 2023-07-25 12:02:38.Tacheng Red Building Museum塔城红楼博物馆
Tacheng Red Building Museum (塔城红楼博物馆) is the museum of Tacheng Prefecture, housed in a Russian-style building of 1914 in Tacheng City, Xinjiang.
Read the place guide →
Tacheng Accordion Museum · 手风琴博物馆Tacheng Accordion Museum手风琴博物馆
The Accordion Museum (手风琴博物馆) in Tacheng City, Xinjiang, holds more than a thousand accordions from more than ten countries in a 500-square-metre display hall.
Read the place guide →Local life & food
Tacheng local specialties
塔城市特色美食 · 1 specialties to discover
Tacheng cheese buns 塔城奶酪包AI dish illustration / AI 菜品示意图
The bread is soft against a richer dairy filling, which may be sweet or more savoury according to the style.
Source ↗Read the dish guide →All dish names · 全部菜名 (1)
More dishes from across Xinjiang are in the Xinjiang food guide.
Plan your visit
Getting there
Tacheng covers the centre of Tacheng Prefecture. Search for 塔城市 in a map app to find stations and your accommodation.
Where to stay →Build your route
Tacheng Red Building Museum and Tacheng Accordion Museum are both listed here. The linked place guides have entrance and visit details.
Continue with Tacheng Prefecture →More in Tacheng Prefecture
Sources & geographic information
Administrative names and parent areas: Official geographic directory · Reference date 2026-09-06.
Photo: Tacheng Red Building Museum · HaziiDozen · CC BY-SA 4.0. Full frame retained; proportionally resized and converted to WebP. No retouching or changes to the photographed subject. Card displays may crop the view.
Photo: Tacheng Accordion Museum · Source photographer · License not provided. EXIF orientation normalized; resized without changing aspect ratio; converted to WebP. No subject edits.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Pins mark approximate centres, not entrances or boundaries.