The etymology was discussed in detail in the article On the Place Name Yuli and Rouran (尉犁地名和柔然源流考) by Li Shuhui (李树辉).

The name Yuli was postulated to have come from Turkic (J)yrægir ("one who is stationed; one who stays"), the name of a Turkic clan, and derived from yræ-(verb form yryk, "to be stationed in") + -gir (adjectival suffix).

Both (J)yrægir and yryk were said to be recorded in the ancient dictionary Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, although the exact Arabic-script forms are unknown, perhaps اُرَكِرْ Üregir, يُرَكِرْ Yüregir, the 15th clan of the Oghuz.

[citation needed] In 2016, Tuanjie was upgraded from a township to a town.

[13] As of 2015, 68,281 (66.20%) of the 103,143 residents of the county were Han Chinese, 33,752 (32.72%) were Uyghur and 1,110 were from other ethnic groups.