As of 2020[update], there are 3,544 Chinese Tatars living in Xinjiang, mostly in the cities of Yining, Tacheng, and Ürümqi.
The Tatars have traditionally acted as mediators between the Russians and the native Muslim peoples of Xinjiang.
The first wave of permanent Tatar settlement in Xinjiang began in 1851, primarily in cities such as Ghulja (Yining).
Tatars brought progressive ideas and new institutions into Xinjiang, where they cemented themselves in the cultural and political fabric of the region.
Jadid schools (including institutions for girls), mosques, and libraries catering to the Tatar community were opened in the second half of the 19th-century and in the first decades of the 20th-century.