Old border gate at Tuergate Pass in the Tien Shan mountains. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Tuergate–Torugart Port became a major port for importing petroleum, fertilizer, and mineral products from the Soviet Union and East European countries in the 1950s and 1960s until its closure in 1969 owing to deteriorated relations between the Soviet Union and China.
A new joint inspection complex under construction at Tuopa Town in Ulugqat County in 2017. Given the harsh high-altitude environment of Torugart Pass (3,752 MASL), the national and local governments of the Xinjiang autonomous region relocated the customs building and port facilities 110 kilometers south to Tuopa Town (2,000 MASL) in the early 1990s and opened the new Tuergate port in late 1995.
1864: The Protocol of Chuguchak was signed between Qing China and Tsarist Russia to clarify the borderline from the Altai Mountains in the north to the Tien Shan Mountains in the south.
1868: At the direction of the first Governor-General of Russian Turkestan, a fortress was built in Naryn, which is located on the important caravan route between Kashgar under Qing rule and Zhetysu (Semirechye) annexed by the Tsarist Russia.
1881: Torugart border trade port was established after Qing China and Tsarist Russia signed the 1881 Treaty of St. Petersburg (or the Treaty of Ili in Chinese sources). Torugart was a long-established caravan stop on the trade route between Kashgar and Zhetysu through the Tien Shan mountains.
1895: In the late 1890s, Russia built a 150-km road in its frontier region from Torugart to At-Bashi village, which is further connected to Naryn.
1906: In 1906, under the Russian pressure, the Chinese government gave in and agreed to build a 170-km road between Tuergate and Kashgar. The road was built with a loan of 20 million rubles from Russia's Sino-Russian Transport Bank, and Russian merchants were given a monopoly of trade along the route.
1952: Following the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the route between Kashgar and Tuergate was designated as the primary overland link between Xinjiang and the then-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. International mail started to go through Tuergate instead of Irkeshtam in 1952.
1953: Army Corps of Engineers of the Xinjiang Garrison of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) renovated the road between Tuergate and Kashgar.
1969: Tuergate Port had been a major port for importing petroleum, fertilizer, and mineral products from the Soviet Union and East European countries in the 1950s and 1960s until its closure in 1969 because of deteriorated relations between the Soviet Union and China.
1983: Accompanied by a gradual thaw in relations between China and the Soviet Union, trade across the Sino-Soviet border resumed. Tuergate Port reopened in December.
1995: Given the high-altitude environment of Torugart Pass (3,752 m MSL) characterized by little oxygen, strong winds, and frigid temperature, the national and local government of the Xinjiang autonomous region decided to relocate the customs building and port facilities 110 km southward to Tuopa town (2,000 m MSL) in 1992. The new Tuergate Port complex located midway between Kashgar and Ulugqat started operation in late 1995.
1996: Kyrgyzstan and China delimited their border following a framework for the post-Soviet border normalization in the west Asian region set out in the Shanghai Record.
2012: China Road and Bridge Corporation carried out a feasibility study for the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan Railway (CKU) project. The Kashgar to Tuergate Railway is part of the northern scheme of the CKU Railway.