The Taklimakan Desert, the world's second largest sand desert, is located in the southern part of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwestern China and covers an area of 338,000 square kilometers. About 85 percent of the desert consists of shifting sand dunes, averaging 100 to 150 meters in height, while dunes in the western parts only average 5 to 25 meters in height. The desert has a temperate climate and very low precipitation of under 50 millimeters annually. It constitutes the central part of the Tarim Basin, which in the western part rises to 1,560 meters above sea level. The basin is partly surrounded by mountains reaching more than 6,000 meters in height. In the north, the desert borders on the Tian Shan and in the west and the south, it borders on the Kunlun and the Altun Mountains. Glacial streams from the mountains run far into the desert, where they disappear, and there is some growth of poplar andtamarisk trees along the riverbeds. There are a few oasis towns along the Hotan River bed, which also constitutes the main route across the desert from south to north. Since the 1980s, large oil fields have been exploited, and in the 1990s more than 500 kilometers of roads have been constructed for the oil industry.
Further Reading
Blackmore, Charles. (1996) The Worst Desert on Earth: Crossing the Taklamakan. Reprint ed. London: John Murray.
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Team of Integrated Scientific Investigation of the Taklimakan Desert. (1993) Wondrous Taklimakan: Integrated Scientific Investigation of theTaklimakan Desert. Beijing: Lubrecht & Cramer and Science Press.
Zhu, Zhenda, and Dieter Jäkel. (1991) Reports on the 1986Sino-German Kunlun Shan Taklimakan Expedition. Berlin: Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin.
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