Definition of "Shapotou"

Next morning we drive to Shapotou on the edge of the Tengger Desert. Behind us churns the Yellow River, looking viscous with its load of ocher silt.

1980 March, Rick Gore, “Journey to China's Far West”, in National Geographic Magazine‎, page 310, column 1

At Zhongwei we disembarked to visit a place named Shapotou, which means "at the head of a sandy slope." The name describes the location, the edge of the Tengger, a shamo where dunes creep along the foothills of the Xiangshan, an east-west mountain range.

1982, The Desert Realm‎, National Geographic Society, page 223

Shapotou District is located on the southeast periphery of the Tengger Desert, bordering the Yellow River, with annual precipitation averaging 180 mm.

1995, Land Degradation and Desertification in Asia and the Pacific Region‎, page 279

Zhang Zhishan, deputy chief of the Shapotou desert research and testing station of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, checks the cyanobacteria breeding pool in a greenhouse in the Shapotou District of Zhongwei City, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, May 30, 2018. Shapotou, whose name was derived from high sand dunes, is located on the southern edge of the Tengger Desert. For half a century, Shapotou is renowned for curbing desertification by mainly making straw checkerboard sand barriers in large scale.

2018 June 22, “Shapotou Curbs Desertification by Making Straw Checkerboard Sand Barriers”, in Chen Na, editor, Chinese Academy of Sciences‎, archived from the original on 21 July 2022