KORLA, China (AP) -- The word Xinjiang means "the New Territory." Most Chinese still think of it that way, regarding it as a desolate, forbidding place, backward and wild.

Yet, in recent years, it has drawn growing numbers of Han Chinese, mostly from central and southwestern China, who seek new opportunities.

Wang Xiying, a 33-year-old peasant from Minyang, in southwestern Sichuan province, came with her husband last year because of drought back home.

In Korla, she makes 12 cents for every 82 1/2-foot length of reed that she bundles together, earning the equivalent of $1.80 for a full day of work under a searing sun protected only by a wind-battered, crude thatch frame.

Others come to invest in Xinjiang's booming economy, which has grown about 10 percent annually the past four years. Trade with the former Soviet republics across the border is rising as Xinjiang revives its historical role as a trading crossroads between East and West.

Still others are technical experts transferred to Xinjiang from industrial bases elsewhere in China to tap the region's rich oil and mineral resources and other raw materials.

In Korla, the population has grown from 200,000 in the late 1970s to today's 300,000. Almost all of the newcomers are Han Chinese from oil towns in other parts of China who have come to support China's ambitious oil exploration in the Taklamakan Desert.

Now, 61 percent of Korla's residents are Han Chinese. Uygurs, a Muslim ethnic group, is the second largest segment at 34 percent. Nomadic Mongolians, who once dominated this part of Xinjiang, have scattered into the hills.

The influx of Chinese is the second Han migration to Xinjiang this century. In the late 1950s, the government sent thousands of Chinese to the region to pave roads, lay rail tracks and build hospitals and schools.

The two migrations have completely changed the demographics of Xinjiang. Before the 1950s, Uygurs made up 78 percent of Xinjiang's population. Now, they account for 48 percent, while the Han Chinese make up 38 percent.