Nalati Town那拉提镇

Nalati Grassland sits deep in the Tianshan range, at the eastern end of the Ili Valley, with a planned area of 1,848 square kilometers. Known as the "sky grassland," it's one of the world's four great alpine river-valley grasslands — snow peaks, glaciers, forest, ravines, meadows, rivers and waterfalls stacked together, and arguably Ili Prefecture's signature natural landscape. It's also called one of the world's most densely settled Kazakh grasslands, an "open-air museum" of traditional Kazakh life. "Nalati" means "sun" — official sources describe it as "the place that sees the sun first." The Kazakh yurt camp inside the scenic area holds about 210 yurts, with operating households earning roughly ¥30,000 a year on average; nearly half of Nalati village's residents now make their living from tourism. Most visitors treat this as a scenic-postcard stop for the day, but what actually stays with you is a bowl of hand-pulled mutton inside a yurt, and the rhythm the herders leave behind when they move their flocks.

Culture

The "open-air museum" the sun reaches first

• "Nalati" means "sun" — official sources describe this as "the place that sees the sun first"
• Kazakh settlement density here is rare nationwide — often called one of the world's most concentrated Kazakh grasslands
• The scenic area's Kazakh yurt camp holds about 210 yurts, offering close-up experiences of embroidery, leatherwork and dairy-making
• Registered population (end of 2018) was about 32,700; a 2011 breakdown put Kazakhs at roughly 61%, alongside Han, Uyghur, Kyrgyz, Hui, Mongol and other groups across 17 ethnicities

Nature

One of the world's four great alpine river-valley grasslands

• A planned area of 1,848 km², combining snow peaks, glaciers, forest, ravines, meadows, rivers and waterfalls
• The scenic area averages ~1,800m elevation; the summer pastures run even higher at ~2,200m, several degrees cooler than the town below
• June–August is the summer pasture's "golden season" — herders pitch their yurts streamside as they move, and life turns holiday-like
• The road south leads deeper into the Tianshan range, making Nalati one of the range's key gateway towns

Everyday Life

A pastoral town where half the village lives off tourism

• About half of Nalati village's residents work in tourism; households running yurts in the Kazakh camp earn roughly ¥30,000 a year on average
• The township covers about 1,599.46 km² — a classic sparsely-populated pastoral area
• Tourism infrastructure is highly seasonal: yurts, horse teams and dining run full-tilt June–September, then shrink noticeably in winter ("Winter Nalati" is a smaller niche offering)
• Private cars can't enter the scenic core — everyone transfers to shuttle buses, and since May 2026 self-drive entry has also moved entirely to online booking via the official WeChat account