The Taklimakan is the largest desert in China and one of the largest shifting-sand deserts in the world, covering some 330,000 km² of the Tarim Basin in southern Xinjiang between the Tianshan and the Kunlun. The Silk Road skirted it on oasis routes to the north and south; today desert highways cross it and, since 2022, a railway loop encircles it.
- National nature reserve (Tarim poplar forests)
Key facts
Overview
About four-fifths of the Taklimakan is moving sand, with dunes that reach 100 to 200 metres high in places. It lies in the rain shadow of some of the highest mountains in Asia and far from any ocean, so it receives very little rain; summer heat and winter cold are both extreme, and spring sandstorms carry dust as far as eastern China and beyond.
Life depends on rivers that flow in from the mountains. The oases along the desert's edge — Kashgar, Yarkand, Hotan, Niya, Kucha, Aksu — grew on their meltwater, and the Silk Road ran from one to the next along the northern and southern rims. Rivers such as the Hotan and the Keriya push into the sand before vanishing, and the Tarim River follows its northern edge, lined with poplar forest.
How the landscape formed
The Tarim Basin is a stable block of old crust surrounded by young, rising mountains, and it has been filled over millions of years with sediments washed and blown from them. The sand of the Taklimakan comes largely from rivers that carried debris from the Kunlun and Tianshan and then dried up; wind has shaped it into huge compound dunes, dune chains and pyramid dunes. Beneath the sand lie ancient river courses, and around its edges are gravel plains, salt crusts and the dry lake beds of Lop Nur in the east.
Highlights
Poplar forests of the Tarim
胡杨林
Forests of Euphrates poplar along the Tarim River, among the largest in the world, famous for their gold autumn colour.
Niya
尼雅遗址
The ruins of an oasis kingdom of the Han and Jin periods, abandoned to the sand north of today's Minfeng.
Dandan Oilik
丹丹乌里克
A Buddhist settlement in the sand north-east of Hotan, abandoned in the late Tang period.
Desert highways
沙漠公路
Roads crossing the dunes from north to south, lined with irrigated belts of shrubs to hold back the sand.
Plants and wildlife
The heart of the desert is almost lifeless, but its rivers and edges support a surprising range of plants and animals adapted to drought, salt and extreme temperatures. The poplar forests along the Tarim are a vital green corridor. Water diversion for farming in the twentieth century dried up the lower Tarim and killed large stretches of forest; ecological water releases since 2000 have restored flow to parts of it.
Plants
Euphrates poplar
胡杨
Populus euphratica, a tree that tolerates salt and drought, said to live, stand and lie for a thousand years each.
Tamarisk
红柳
Tamarix shrubs that trap sand into mounds around their roots.
Saxaul
梭梭
Haloxylon, a hardy desert shrub planted to stabilise sand.
Wildlife
Tarim red deer
塔里木马鹿
A red deer adapted to the poplar forests and reed beds of the Tarim.
Goitred gazelle
鹅喉羚
A desert gazelle of the basin margins.
Wild Bactrian camel
野双峰驼
A critically endangered wild camel surviving in the eastern deserts around Lop Nur.
Culture and legend
The name is often explained in popular accounts as “go in and you will not come out”, but that is a folk etymology; scholars link it to Turkic words for ruins or an abandoned place. The desert has swallowed many settlements, and its dry sands preserved documents, textiles and mummies of the Silk Road period. European explorers made it famous: Sven Hedin nearly died crossing it in 1895, and Aurel Stein excavated Dandan Oilik and Niya in 1900–1901. Today the oasis towns around it are mostly Uyghur, and oil and gas fields lie beneath the sand.
Loulan
楼兰
The ruined city at the eastern edge of the basin near Lop Nur, a Silk Road kingdom abandoned by the fourth century.
Tarim River
塔里木河
The longest inland river in China, following the northern edge of the desert.
History
2nd century BCE – 4th century CE
Oasis kingdoms of the Tarim
States such as Loulan, Niya (Jingjue) and Khotan flourish on the Silk Road around the desert.
1895
Sven Hedin's crossing
The Swedish explorer's expedition loses men and camels in the dunes, making the desert notorious in Europe.
1995
Tarim Desert Highway opens
The first road across the sand links Lunnan on the northern edge with Minfeng in the south; more crossings followed.
2022
Railway loop completed
The Hotan–Ruoqiang railway closes a loop of lines around the desert of about 2,700 km.
2024
Green belt closed
A continuous belt of planted shrubs and sand barriers around the desert edge, some 3,000 km long, is completed.
Through the seasons
Spring
The season of sandstorms, from March to May; visibility can drop to a few metres.
Summer
Extremely hot, with sand temperatures far higher than the air; travel in the dunes is dangerous.
Autumn
The best season, with calmer, milder weather and the poplar forests turning gold in October.
Winter
Very cold, especially at night, but dry and calm; occasional snow on the dunes.
Routes and ways in
Tarim Desert Highway
A road across the sand from the Tarim River to Minfeng on the southern Silk Road, lined for its whole length with an irrigated shelter belt.
Southern Silk Road
The road and railway along the southern edge from Kashgar via Yarkand and Hotan towards Qiemo and Ruoqiang, past the oases at the foot of the Kunlun.
Poplar forests of Luntai and Yuli
Walks among the Euphrates poplars on the northern edge, at their best in autumn.
Practical notes
- Never enter the dunes on your own: there are no landmarks, water or phone signal, and temperatures are extreme.
- Expeditions into the interior require permits and experienced organisers.
- Sandstorms can close roads; carry water and supplies even on the highways.
- Kashgar, Hotan and Kuqa are the main oasis bases on the desert's rim.
Cities to start from
Frequently asked questions
Sources
- Takla Makan Desert — Encyclopaedia Britannica (retrieved 27 September 2026)
- Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region People's Government — Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region People's Government (retrieved 27 September 2026)
- Taklamakan Desert — Wikipedia (retrieved 27 September 2026)
More mountains and nature in Xinjiang
- LakeKanas Lake喀纳斯湖A glacial lake in the Altai forests at China's northern tip
- Mountain · 7,546 mMuztagh Ata慕士塔格峰The “Father of Ice Mountains” above Karakul Lake
- GrasslandNalati Grassland那拉提草原Mountain pastures of the Kazakh herders in the Ili valley
- LakeSayram Lake赛里木湖The largest alpine lake of the Tianshan, on the road to Ili
- Lake · 5,445 mTianchi and Bogda Peak天山天池A mountain lake beneath the glaciers of the eastern Tianshan
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