The source of salt

Salt originated in China. In ancient China, natural salt was called "brine", and salt water was called "salt" only when it became solid crystals after artificial processing. In industry, salt is dried in seawater and boiled in salt lake to precipitate salt crystals. The salt made in this way is called crude salt. Dissolving, precipitating, filtering and evaporating to obtain refined salt. There are four major salt lakes in China, namely Chaka Salt Lake in Qinghai, Chaerhan Salt Lake in Qinghai, Yuncheng Salt Lake in Shanxi and Barkun Salt Lake in Xinjiang, with the highest salt production in the world. Salt is the main source of salty taste of dishes, which can improve umami and original flavor. The amount of salt should be appropriate. Excessive salt not only affects the taste of dishes, but also is not conducive to human health.

The raw material sources of salt can be divided into four categories: sea salt, lake salt, well salt and mineral salt. The salt made by drying seawater in the sun is called "sea salt"; The salt produced by mining modern salt lake minerals is called "lake salt"; Salt made from shallow surface or underground natural brine is extracted by sinking method, which is called "well salt"; The salt produced by mining ancient rock salt deposits is called "mineral salt". Because rock salt deposits sometimes coexist with natural brine salt deposits, and because of the advent of drilling water solution method for mining rock salt deposits, there is also a general term for "well salt" and "mineral salt", or generally called "mineral salt".

In daily life, sodium chloride is often referred to simply as "salt". In addition to food (commonly known as salt), sodium chloride is widely used as a chemical raw material (commonly known as industrial salt), and the statistical chronology of the National Bureau of Statistics takes "raw salt" as a general term.

Salt production in China has always been dominated by sea salt, followed by lake salt and well salt. Sea salt production is greatly influenced by climate, and sea salt fields are mostly distributed in the eastern coastal areas. In order to balance and coordinate the salt production, the salt production in inland wells and lakes has developed rapidly in 10, so the proportion of sea salt in salt production has declined.

Salt is the most widely used nonmetallic mineral raw material in the world, and it is a necessity for people's survival. With the development of chemical industry, the development of new application fields and the increase of population year by year, the demand for salt is also increasing, so salt plays a very important role in the national economy and people's livelihood. The consumption of salt is one of the important signs to measure the industrialization level of a country. China is a big salt producer in the world, and the sea salt produced from seawater ranks 1 in the world. The total output of sea salt, lake salt and well salt ranks second in the world, second only to the United States.