Northwest Institute ofHistorical Environment and Socio-Economic Development

There were many exceptional climate events all over the world in 1876-1878. Existing researches showed a huge controversy that the drought event in Northwest China based on different proxy data, such as
historical documents and tree ring. To understand the spatial istribution of the drought event, this article collectedthe information of the climate and agriculture of the 1876-1878 from the historical documents in the
Midwest Region of Northwest China in the late 19th century. The climatic information includes the event of the less precipitation and the event of the drought, and the agricultural information includes the event of the locust and the event of the poor harvest as well as famine. The historical documents are the central archives of the Qing dynasty and the local archives of the Xinjiang, and the local gazetteer of the Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang, and the collected works of the important person. Those events from historical documents were showed in the map. The result showed that event of less precipitation, drought, and locust ppeared in the Midwest Region of Northwest China in 1876-1878. The historical documents suggested the spatial distribution of drought
event and other related event in Gansu, Ningxia and eastern Xinjiang, and the most western distribution area was the middle of northern foot of Tianshan Mountains. And the most serious year of events was 1877. The drought events had less influence on the agriculture in the all area, and didn't lead to great famine in the Midwest Region of Northwest like North China.