The history of human activity in the Qilian area can be traced back to the Han dynasty, more than 2,000 years ago.

[2][3] In the sixth year of the Han dynasty (201 AD), the Yuezhi was attacked and invaded by the Xiongnu kings and some of them moved to the Qilian Mountains.

[3] Qilian County contains a total of seven townships, which are Babao, Zhamashen, Yeniugou, Kekeli, Mole, Duolong, Ebao, and Aru.

Due to its geographical location, Qilian County is subject to humid air currents from the southeast monsoon in the summer and high pressure from Mongolia and dry and cold air currents from Siberia in the winter, resulting in large temperature differences and low temperatures.

[6] The total number of rivers in the county is 247, the main rivers are Mole River, Black River, Babao River and Tuole River, with an annual runoff of 2.322 billion cubic meters[7] Qilian County is made up of 3 towns and 4 townships: Qilian County has a total population of 43,700 people, Qilian County is inhabited by ethnic minorities, with about 15 ethnic groups living here, mainly Tibetan, Hui, Han, Monguor, Gaoshan people, Zhuang and Korean.The main religions spread in Qilian area are Tibetan Buddhism and Islam, Tibetans are mainly concentrated in arou, ebao, yeniugou, kekeli, Mongolians mainly live in mole and duolong, Hui are concentrated in Babaoxiang and the county.

Qilian xian zhi bian zuan wei yuan hui, 祁连县志编纂委员会.

[3] 2:Li, Jingzhong; Liu, Yongmei; Mo, Chonghui; Wang, Lei; Pang, Guowei; Cao, Mingming (2016-02-16).

"IKONOS Image-Based Extraction of the Distribution Area of Stellera chamaejasme L. in Qilian County of Qinghai Province, China".

[10] 3:刘, 宗广; 戴, 国华; 陈, 立同; 冯, 晓娟; 朱, 珊珊; 贺, 金生 (2016-06-01).

"The Community Characteristics and Monthly Variation Patterns of Butterfly Species in Qilian County, Qinghai Province, China".

[2] 8：YANG, Cheng-De; CHEN, Xiu-Rong; LONG, Rui-Jun; Xue, Li; ZHANG, Zhen-Fen (2009-12-25).

"Distribution characteristics of soil carbon during forage greening in different alpine grasslands of Eastern Qilian Mountains".

[12] 9:Li, Shuo; Zhe, hao Jiang; gang Zhang, De; nan Nie, Zhong; gang Chen, Jian; zhen Hu, Xin; Chen, Lu; ru Yuan, Zi; Ren, Ling (2016-08-20).