Korla is the capital of the Bayangol Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, which occupies an area of 478,700 square kilometers in the southern part of Xinjiang. Situated on the northern fringe of the Tarim Basin and the southern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, between latitude 414 and 424 north and longitude 852 and 867 east Korla, which is 471 kilometers from Urumqi, covers an area of 7,449 square kilometers at an average elevation of 933.2 meters.

Dominated by a continental climate, the prefecture is dry with light rainfall, a high evaporation rate, lots of sun and a huge temperature disparity between day and night. The city of Korla has an annual mean temperature of 11.4 and an annual precipitation of 50 millimeters. The prefecture has 186,667 hectares of forested land.

Korla is the capital of the Bayangol Mongol Autonomous Prefecture, which occupies an area of 478,700 square kilometers in the southern part of Xinjiang. Situated on the northern fringe of the Tarim Basin and the southern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, between latitude 414 and 424 north and longitude 852 and 867 east Korla, which is 471 kilometers from Urumqi, covers an area of 7,449 square kilometers at an average elevation of 933.2 meters.

The city of Korla has a population of 220,000, with an urban population of 120,000. Of the whole population of the city, the Han nationality accounts for 63.28 percent, the Uygur 33.93 percent, the Hui 1.89 percent and the Mongol 0.64 percent.