Definition of "Dzungaria"

Little Bucharia is separated, on the north, by the chain of the Celestial Mountains, from Dzungaria, which is inhabited by nomade Calmucks, and is terminated on the north by Siberia.

1829 April, “Dictionary of Tibetan Language”, in The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and Its Dependencies‎, volume 27, number 160, page 432

No traditional Chinese dynasty ever governed the whole of Dzungaria. None was capable of or interested in doing so, but the rich oases of the Tarim basin frequently came under imperial control.² Dzungaria was first united with China in the Mongol empire, but it was not until the Manchu or Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1911) that Peking developed a positive policy toward this vast area of mountains, steppe, and desert.

1966, George Moseley, A Sino-Soviet Cultural Frontier: the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Chou‎, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pages 3–4

We drove from the Ili valley through the whole of Dzungaria, took the train out of Sinkiang, and continued down the Kansu corridor by car all the way to the Shensi border.

1979, Jan Myrdal, translated by Ann Hening, The Silk Road: A Journey from the High Pamirs and Ili through Sinkiang and Kansu‎, New York: Pantheon Books, page 3

Xinjiang is China’s biggest administrative division, sprawling across 1.6 million square kilometers of some of the world’s harshest terrain. It consists of the Tarim basin, covered by the world’s second largest sand desert, and Dzungaria, an area of mixed desert, steppe, and forest. […] Today the region’s ethnic minority population is dominated by Muslim Turkic peoples, Uyghurs in the Tarim basin and Kazakhs in Dzungaria; hence the region was once called “Chinese Turkestan” and seen as culturally part of Central Asia.

2017 July 29, John Lee, “12 Regions of China: Xinjiang”, in The Diplomat‎, archived from the original on 30 July 2017