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Taklamakan Desert
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Taklamakan Desert (Takelamagan Shamo, 塔克拉玛干沙漠), also known as Taklimakan, is a desert of Central Asia, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. It is known as one of the largest sandy deserts in the world[1], ranking 15th in size in a ranking of the world's largest non-polar deserts.[2] It covers an area of 270,000 km² of the Tarim Basin, 1,000 km long and 400 km wide. It is crossed at its northern and at its southern edge by two branches of the Silk Road as travellers sought to avoid the arid wasteland.[3]
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There is no water on the desert and it was hazardous to cross. Takla Makan means "go in and you'll never come out" [4] Merchant caravans on the Silk Road would stop for relief at the thriving oasis towns.[5]
The key oasis towns, watered by rainfall from the mountains, were Kashgar, Marin, Niya, Yarkand, and Khotan (Hetian) to the south, Kuqa and Turfan in the north, and Loulan and Dunhuang in the east.[3] Now many, such as Marin and Gaochang are ruined cities in sparsely inhabited dusty spots with poor roads and minimal transportation in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of the Peoples Republic of China.[6]
The archeological treasures found in its sand buried ruins point to Tocharian, early Hellenistic, Indian and Buddhistic influences.[3] Mummies, some 4000 years old, have been found in the region. They show the wide range of peoples who have passed through. Some of the mummies appear European.[7] Later, the Taklamakan was inhabited by Turkic peoples. Starting with the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese periodically extended their control to the oasis cities of the Taklamakan in order to control the important silk route trade across Central Asia. Periods of Chinese rule were interspersed with rule by Turkic and Mongol and Tibetan peoples. The present population consists largely of Turkic, Uyghur and Kazakh people.
- Tarim mummies
- Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves
- Kizil Caves
- Emin Minaret
- Yuezhi
- List of deserts by area
- Cities along the Silk Road
- ^ Taklamakan Desert. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved on 2007-08-11.
- ^ The World's Largest Desert. geology.com. Retrieved on 2007-08-22.
- ^ a b c Bahn, Paul G. (2000). The Atlas of World Geology. New York: Checkmark Books, pp 134– 135. ISBN 0-8160-4051-6.
- ^ The Silk Roads and Eurasian Geography. Retrieved on 2007-08-07.
- ^ Spies Along the Silk Road. Retrieved on 2007-08-07.
- ^ The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith. Retrieved on 2007-08-25.
- ^ Mysterious Mummies of China. pbs.org. Retrieved on 2007-08-11.
- Jarring, Gunnar (1997). The toponym Takla-makan, Turkic Languages, Vol. 1, p. 227-240
- Hopkirk, Peter (1980). Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 0-87023-435-8.
- Hopkirk, Peter (1994). The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia. ISBN 1-56836-022-3.
- Desert Meteorology, Thomas T. Warner, 2004, Cambridge University Press, 612 pages ISBN 0521817986
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