BEIJING, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region has built millions of earthquake-resistant houses which have withstood over 30 quakes of magnitude 5 or above in the past seven years, the China Daily reported Tuesday.

Xinjiang, a quake-prone region, launched the project to construct houses able to resist earthquakes in rural areas in 2011, said Xinjiang's Housing and Urban-Rural Development Department.

From 2011 to 2015, Xinjiang invested 121 billion yuan (17.5 billion U.S. dollars) to build 1.5 million single-family houses for about 6 million farmers and herdsmen, the department said.

The earthquake-resistant houses, made of bricks and steel, usually consist of two rooms and one kitchen, helping the residents replace their adobe houses.

The region plans to subsidize another 1.37 million houses for impoverished families from 2016 to 2020, among which about 882,000 houses have been completed, according to the report.