The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in northwest
China occupying an area of about 1,020,000
km2 (390,000 sq mi). Located in China's Xinjiang
region, it is sometimes used synonymously
to refer the southern half of the province,
or Nanjiang (Chinese: 南疆; pinyin: Nánjiāng;
literally: "Southern Xinjiang"), as opposed
to the northern half of the province known
as Dzungaria or Beijiang. Its northern boundary
is the Tian Shan mountain range and its southern
boundary is the Kunlun Mountains on the edge
of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The Taklamakan
Desert dominates much of the basin. The historical
Uyghur name for the Tarim Basin is Altishahr
(六域), which means "six cities" in Uyghur.
== Geography and relation to Xinjiang ==
Xinjiang consists of two main geographically,
historically, and ethnically distinct regions
with different historical names, Dzungaria
and the Tarim Basin (Altishahr), before Qing
China unified them into one political entity
called Xinjiang province in 1884. At the time
of the Qing conquest in 1759, Dzungaria was
inhabited by steppe dwelling, nomadic Tibetan
Buddhist Dzungar people, while the Tarim Basin
(Altishahr) was inhabited by sedentary, oasis
dwelling, Turkic speaking Muslim farmers,
now known as the Uyghur people. They were
governed separately until 1884.
=== Tarim Basin locations ===
North side: The Chinese called this the Tien
Shan Nan Lu or Tien Shan South Road, as opposed
to the Bei Lu north of the mountains. Along
it runs the modern highway and railroad while
the middle Tarim River is about 100 km south.
Kashgar was where the caravans met before
crossing the mountains. Bachu or Miralbachi;
Uchturpan north of the main road; Aksu on
the large Aksu River; Kucha was once an important
kingdom; Luntai; Korla, now a large town;
Karashar near Bosten Lake; Turpan north of
the Turpan Depression and south of the Bogda
Shan; Hami; then southeast to Anxi and the
Gansu Corridor.
Center: Most of the basin is occupied by the
Taklamakan Desert which is too dry for permanent
habitation. The Yarkand, Kashgar and Aksu
Rivers join to form the Tarim River which
runs along the north side of the basin. Formerly
it continued to Loulan, but some time after
330AD it turned southeast near Korla toward
Charkilik and Loulan was abandoned. The Tarim
ended at the now-dry Lop Nur which occupied
a changing position east of Loulan. Eastward
is the fabled Jade Gate which the Chinese
considered the gateway to the Western Regions.
Beyond that is Dunhuang with its ancient manuscripts
and then Anxi at the west end of the Gansu
Corridor.
South side: Kashgar; Yangi Hissar, famous
for its knives; Yarkand, once larger than
Kashgar; Karghalik (Yecheng), with a route
to India; Karakash; Khotan, the main source
of Chinese jade; eastward the land becomes
more desolate; Keriya (Yutian); Niya (Minfeng);
Qiemo (Cherchen); Charkilik (Ruoqiang). The
modern road continues east to Tibet. There
is no current road east across the Kumtag
Desert to Dunhuang, but caravans somehow made
the crossing through the Yangguan pass south
of the Jade Gate.
Roads and passes, rivers and caravan routes:
The Southern Xinjiang Railway branches from
the Lanxin Railway near Turpan, follows the
north side of the basin to Kashgar and curves
southeast to Khotan.
Roads:The main road from eastern China reaches
Urumchi and continues as highway 314 along
the north side to Kashgar. Highway 315 follows
the south side from Kashgar to Charkilik and
continues east to Tibet. There are currently
four north-south roads across the desert.
218 runs from Charkilik to Korla along the
former course of the Tarim forming an oval
whose other end is Kashgar. The Tarim Desert
Highway, a major engineering achievement,
crosses the center from Niya to Luntai. The
new Highway 217 follows the Khotan River from
Khotan to near Aksu. A road follows the Yarkand
River from Yarkand to Baqu. East of the Korla-Charkilik
road travel continues to be very difficult.
Rivers coming south from the Tien Shan join
the Tarim, the largest being the Aksu. Rivers
flowing north from the Kunlun are usually
named for the town or oasis they pass through.
Most dry up in the desert, only the Hotan
River reaching the Tarim in good years. An
exception is the Qiemo River which flowed
northeast into Lop Nor. Ruins in the desert
imply that these rivers were once larger.
Caravans and passes: The original caravan
route seems to have followed the south side.
At the time of the Han Dynasty conquest it
shifted to the center (Jade Gate-Loulan-Korla).
When the Tarim changed course about 330AD
it shifted north to Hami. A minor route went
north of the Tian Shan. When there was war
on the Gansu Corridor trade entered the basin
near Charkilik from the Qaidam Basin. The
original route to India seems to have started
near Yarkand and Kargilik, but it is now replaced
by the Karakoram Highway south from Kashgar.
To the west of Kashgar via the Irkeshtam border
crossing is the Alay Valley which was once
the route to Persia. Northeast of Kashgar
the Torugart pass leads to the Ferghana Valley.
Near Uchturpan the Bedel Pass leads to Lake
Issyk-Kul and the steppes. Somewhere near
Aksu the difficult Muzart Pass led north to
the Ili River basin (Kulja). Near Korla was
the Iron Gate Pass and now the highway and
railway north to Urumchi. From Turfan the
easy Dabancheng pass leads to Urumchi. The
route from Charkilik to the Qaidam Plateau
was of some importance when Tibet was an empire.
North of the Mountains is Dzungaria with its
central Gurbantünggüt Desert, Urumchi the
capital and the Karamay oil fields. The Kulja
territory is the upper basin of the Ili River
and opens out onto the Kazakh steppe with
several roads eastward. The Dzungarian Gate
was once a migration route and is now a road
and rail crossing. Tacheng or Tarbaghatay
is a road crossing and former trading post.
== Geology ==
The Tarim Basin is the result of an amalgamation
between an ancient microcontinent and the
growing Eurasian continent during the Carboniferous
to Permian periods. At present, deformation
around the margins of the basin is resulting
in the microcontinental crust being pushed
under Tian Shan to the north, and Kunlun Shan
to the south.
A thick succession of Paleozoic, Mesozoic
and Cenozoic sedimentary rocks occupy the
central parts of the basin, locally exceeding
thicknesses of 15 km (9 mi). The source rocks
of oil and gas tend to be mostly Permian mudstones
and, less often, Ordovician strata which experienced
an intense and widespread early Hercynian
karstification. The effect of this event are
e.g. paleokarst reservoirs in the Tahe oil
field. Below the level enriched with gas and
oil is a complex Precambrian basement believed
to be made up of the remnants of the original
Tarim microplate, which accrued to the growing
Eurasian continent in Carboniferous time.
The snow on K2, the second highest mountain
in the world, flows into glaciers which move
down the valleys to melt. The melted water
forms rivers which flow down the mountains
and into the Tarim Basin, never reaching the
sea. Surrounded by desert, some rivers feed
the oases where the water is used for irrigation
while others flow to salt lakes and marshes.
Lop Nur is a marshy, saline depression at
the east end of the Tarim Basin. The Tarim
River ends in Lop Nur.
The Tarim Basin is believed to contain large
potential reserves of petroleum and natural
gas. Methane comprises over 70 percent of
the natural gas reserve, with variable contents
of ethane (<1% ~18%) and propane (<0.5% ~9%).
China National Petroleum Corporation's comprehensive
exploration of the Tarim basin between 1989
and 1995 led to the identification of 26 oil-
and gas-bearing structures. These occur at
deeper depths and in scattered deposits. Beijing
aims to develop Xinjiang into China's new
energy base for the long run, supplying one-fifth
of the country's total oil supply by 2010,
with an annual output of 35 million tonnes.
On June 10, 2010 Baker Hughes announced an
agreement to work with PetroChina Tarim Oilfield
Co. to supply oilfield services, including
both directional and vertical drilling systems,
formation evaluation services, completion
systems and artificial lift technology for
wells drilled into foothills formations greater
than 7,500 meters (24,600 feet) deep with
pressures greater than 20,000 psi (1379 bar)
and bottomhole temperatures of approximately
160 °C (320 °F). Electrical submersible
pumping (ESP) systems will be employed to
dewater gas and condensate wells. PetroChina
will fund any joint development.In 2015, Chinese
researchers published the finding of a vast,
carbon-rich underground sea beneath the basin.
== History ==
It is speculated that the Tarim Basin may
be one of the last places in Asia to have
become inhabited: It is surrounded by mountains
and irrigation technologies might have been
necessary.The Northern Silk Road on one route
bypassed the Tarim Basin north of the Tian
Shan mountains and traversed it on three oases-dependent
routes: one north of the Taklamakan Desert,
one south, and a middle one connecting both
through the Lop Nor region.
The northern Tarim route ran from Kashgar
over Aksu, Kucha, Korla, through the Iron
Gate Pass, over Karasahr, Jiaohe, Turpan,
Gaochang and Kumul to Anxi.
The southern Tarim route ran from Kashgar
over Yarkant, Karghalik, Pishan, Khotan, Keriya,
Niya, Qarqan, Qarkilik, Miran and Dunhuang
to Anxi.
The middle Tarim route, allowing the shortest
possible itinerary of all four routes, connected
Korla on the northern Tarim route over Loulan
across the Lop Nor region with Dunhuang on
the southern Tarim route. The Lop Nor region
became uninhabitable in the 4th century and
the middle route has been deserted since the
6th century.
=== Early periods ===
The earliest inhabitants of the Tarim Barin
may be the Tocharians whose languages are
the easternmost group of Indo-European languages.
Caucasoid mummies have been found in various
locations in the Tarim Basin such as Loulan,
the Xiaohe Tomb complex, and Qäwrighul. These
mummies have been suggested to be of Tocharian
origin, and these people may have inhabited
the region since at least 1800 BCE. They may
be related to the "Yuezhi" (Chinese 月氏;
Wade–Giles: Yüeh-Chih) mentioned in Chinese
texts. Protected by the Taklamakan Desert
from steppe nomads, elements of Tocharian
culture survived until the 7th century, at
the dawning of the 800s with the arriving
Turkic immigrants from the collapsing Uyghur
Khaganate of modern-day Mongolia began to
absorb the Tocharians to form the modern-day
Uyghur ethnic group.
Another people in the region besides Tocharian
are the Indo-Iranian Saka people who spoke
various Eastern Iranian Khotanese Scythian
or Saka dialects. In the Achaemenid-era Old
Persian inscriptions found at Persepolis,
dated to the reign of Darius I (r. 522-486
BC), the Saka are said to have lived just
beyond the borders of Sogdiana. Likewise an
inscription dated to the reign of Xerxes I
(r. 486-465 BC) has them coupled with the
Dahae people of Central Asia. The contemporary
Greek historian Herodotus noted that the Achaemenid
Persians called all of the Indo-Iranian Scythian
peoples as the Saka. They were known as the
Sai (塞, sāi, sək in archaic Chinese) in
ancient Chinese records. These records indicate
that they originally inhabited Ili and Chu
River valleys of modern Kazakhstan. In the
Chinese Book of Han, the area was called the
"land of the Sai", i.e. the Saka. Presence
of a people believed to be Saka has also been
found in various location in the Tarim Basin,
for example in the Keriya region at Yumulak
Kum (Djoumboulak Koum, Yuansha) around 200
km east of Khotan, with a tomb dated to as
early as the 7th century BC.According to the
Sima Qian's Shiji, the nomadic Indo-European
Yuezhi originally lived between Tengri Tagh
(Tian Shan) and Dunhuang of Gansu, China.
However, the Yuezhi were assaulted and forced
to flee from the Hexi Corridor of Gansu by
the Mongolic forces of the Xiongnu ruler Modu
Chanyu, who conquered the area in 177-176
BC (decades before the Han Chinese conquest
and colonization of Gansu or the establishment
of the Protectorate of the Western Regions).
In turn the Yuezhi were responsible for attacking
and pushing the Sai (i.e. Saka) west into
Sogdiana, where in the mid 2nd century BC
the latter crossed the Syr Darya into Bactria,
but also into the Fergana Valley where they
settled in Dayuan, southwards towards northern
India, and eastward as well where they settled
in some of the oasis city-states of the Tarim
Basin. Whereas the Yuezhi continued westward
and conquered Daxia around 177-176 BC, the
Sai (i.e. Saka), including some allied Tocharian
peoples, fled south to the Pamirs before heading
back east to settle in Tarim Basin sites like
Yanqi (焉耆, Karasahr) and Qiuci (龜茲,
Kucha). The Saka are recorded as inhabiting
Khotan by at least the 3rd century and also
settled in nearby Shache (莎車), a town
named after the Saka inhabitants (i.e. saγlâ).
Although the ancient Chinese had called Khotan
Yutian (于闐), it's more native Iranian
names during the Han period were Jusadanna
(瞿薩旦那), derived from Indo-Iranian
Gostan and Gostana, the names of the town
and region around it, respectively.
=== Han dynasty ===
Around 200 BCE, the Yuezhi were overrun by
the Xiongnu. The Xiongnu tried to invade the
western region of China, but ultimately failed
and lost control of the region to the Chinese.
The Han Chinese wrested control of the Tarim
Basin from the Xiongnu at the end of the 1st
century under the leadership of General Ban
Chao (32–102 CE), during the Han-Xiongnu
War. The Chinese administered the Tarim Basin
as the Protectorate of the Western Regions.
The Tarim Basin was later under many foreign
rulers, but ruled primary by Turkic, Han,
Tibetan, and Mongolic peoples.
The powerful Kushans, who conquered the last
vestiges of the Indo-Greek Kingdom, expanded
back into the Tarim Basin in the 1st–2nd
centuries CE, where they established a kingdom
in Kashgar and competed for control of the
area with nomads and Chinese forces. The Yuezhi
or Rouzhi (Chinese: 月氏; pinyin: Yuèzhī;
Wade–Giles: Yüeh4-chih1, [ɥê ʈʂɻ̩́])
were an ancient people first reported in Chinese
histories as nomadic pastoralists living in
an arid grassland area in the western part
of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during
the 1st millennium BC. After a major defeat
by the Xiongnu, during the 2nd century BC,
the Yuezhi split into two groups: the Greater
Yuezhi (Dà Yuèzhī 大月氏) and Lesser
Yuezhi (Xiǎo Yuèzhī 小月氏). They introduced
the Brahmi script, the Indian Prakrit language
for administration, and Buddhism, playing
a central role in the Silk Road transmission
of Buddhism to Eastern Asia.
Three pre-Han texts mention peoples who appear
to be the Yuezhi, albeit under slightly different
names.
The philosophical tract Guanzi (73, 78, 80
and 81) mentions nomadic pastoralists known
as the Yúzhī 禺氏 (Old Chinese: *ŋʷjo-kje)
or Niúzhī 牛氏 (OC: *ŋʷjə-kje), who
supplied jade to the Chinese. (The Guanzi
is now generally believed to have been compiled
around 26 BC, based on older texts, including
some from the Qi state era of the 11th to
3rd centuries BC. Most scholars no longer
attribute its primary authorship to Guan Zhong,
a Qi official in the 7th century BC.) The
export of jade from the Tarim Basin, since
at least the late 2nd millennium BC, is well-documented
archaeologically. For example, hundreds of
jade pieces found in the Tomb of Fu Hao (c.
1200 BC) originated from the Khotan area,
on the southern rim of the Tarim Basin. According
to the Guanzi, the Yúzhī/Niúzhī, unlike
the neighbouring Xiongnu, did not engage in
conflict with nearby Chinese states.
The Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven (early
4th century BC) also mentions the Yúzhī
禺知 (OC: *ŋʷjo-kje).
The Yi Zhou Shu (probably dating from the
4th to 1st century BC) makes separate references
to the Yúzhī 禺氏 (OC: *ŋʷjo-kje) and
Yuèdī 月氐 (OC: *ŋʷjat-tij). The latter
may be a misspelling of the name Yuèzhī
月氏 (OC: *ŋʷjat-kje) found in later texts,
composed of characters meaning "moon" and
"clan" respectively.
=== Sui–Tang dynasties ===
After the Han dynasty, the Kingdoms of the
Tarim Basin began to have strong cultural
influences on China as a conduit between the
cultures of India and Central Asia to China.
Indian Buddhists had previously travelled
to China during the Han dynasty, but the Buddhist
monk Kumārajīva from Kucha who visited China
during the Six dynasties was particularly
renowned. The music and dances from Kucha
were also popular in the Sui and Tang periods.During
the Tang Dynasty, a series of military expeditions
were conducted against the oasis states of
the Tarim Basin, then vassals of the Western
Turkic Khaganate. The campaigns against the
oasis states began under Emperor Taizong with
the annexation of Gaochang in 640. The nearby
kingdom of Karasahr was captured by the Tang
in 644 and the kingdom of Kucha was conquered
in 649.
The expansion into Central Asia continued
under Taizong's successor, Emperor Gaozong,
who dispatched an army in 657 led by Su Dingfang
against the Western Turk qaghan Ashina Helu.
Ashina was defeated and the khaganate was
absorbed into the Tang empire. The Tarim Basin
was administered through the Anxi Protectorate
and the Four Garrisons of Anxi. Tang hegemony
beyond the Pamir Mountains in modern Tajikistan
and Afghanistan ended with revolts by the
Turks, but the Tang retained a military presence
in Xinjiang. These holdings were later invaded
by the Tibetan Empire to the south in 670.
For the remainder of the Tang Dynasty, the
Tarim Basin alternated between Tang and Tibetan
rule as they competed for control of Central
Asia.
=== Kingdom of Khotan ===
As a consequence of the Han–Xiongnu War
spanning from 133 BC to 89 AD, the Tarim Basin
region of Xinjiang in Northwest China, including
the Saka-founded oasis city-state of Khotan
and Kashgar, fell under Han Chinese influence,
beginning with the reign of Emperor Wu (r.
141-87 BC) of the Han Dynasty. Much like the
neighboring people of the Kingdom of Khotan,
people of Kashgar, the capital of the Shule
Kingdom, spoke Saka, one of the Eastern Iranian
languages. As noted by the Greek historian
Herodotus, the contemporary Persians labelled
all Scythians as the Saka. Indeed, modern
scholarly consensus is that the Saka language,
ancestor to the Pamir languages in northern
India and Khotanese in Xinjiang, China belongs
to the Scythian languages.During China's Tang
dynasty (618-907 AD), the region once again
came under Chinese suzerainty with the campaigns
of conquest by Emperor Taizong of Tang (r.
626-649). From the late 8th to 9th centuries,
the region changed hands between the Chinese
Tang Empire and the rival Tibetan Empire.
By the early 11th century the region fell
to the Muslim Turkic peoples of the Kara-Khanid
Khanate, which led to both the Turkification
of the region as well as its conversion from
Buddhism to Islam.
Suggestive evidence of Khotan's early link
to India are minted coins from Khotan dated
to the 3rd century bearing dual inscriptions
in Chinese and Gandhari Prakrit in the Kharosthi
script. Although Prakrit was the administrative
language of nearby Shanshan, 3rd-century documents
from that kingdom record the title hinajha
(i.e. "generalissimo") for the king of Khotan,
Vij'ida-simha, a distinctively Iranian-based
word equivalent to the Sanskrit title senapati,
yet nearly identical to the Khotanese Saka
hīnāysa attested in contemporary documents.
This along with the fact that the king's recorded
regnal periods were given in Khotanese as
kṣuṇa, "implies an established connection
between the Iranian inhabitants and the royal
power," according to the late Professor of
Iranian Studies Ronald E. Emmerick (d. 2001).
He contended that Khotanese-Saka-language
royal rescripts of Khotan dated to the 10th
century "makes it likely that the ruler of
Khotan was a speaker of Iranian." Furthermore,
he elaborated on the early name of Khotan:
The name of Khotan is attested in a number
of spellings, of which the oldest form is
hvatana, in texts of approximately the 7th
to the 10th century AD written in an Iranian
language itself called hvatana by the writers.
The same name is attested also in two closely
related Iranian dialects, Sogdian and Tumshuq...Attempts
have accordingly been made to explain it as
Iranian, and this is of some importance historically.
My own preference is for an explanation connecting
it semantically with the name Saka, for the
Iranian inhabitants of Khotan...
In Northwest China, Khotanese-Saka-language
documents, ranging from medical texts to Buddhist
literature, have been found primarily in Khotan
and Tumshuq (northeast of Kashgar). They largely
predate the arrival of Islam to the region
under the Turkic Kara-Khanids. Similar documents
in the Khotanese-Saka language were found
in Dunhuang dating mostly to the 10th century.
=== Turkic influx ===
The collapse of the Uyghur Khaganate in 840
AD led to the movement of the Uyghurs south
to Turpan and Gansu, and some absorbed by
the Karluks. The Uyghurs of Turfan (or Qocho)
became Buddhists. In the tenth century, the
Karluks, Yagmas, Chigils and other Turkic
tribes founded the Kara-Khanid Khanate in
Semirechye, Western Tian Shan, and Kashgaria.
=== Islamisation of the Tarim Basin ===
The Karakhanids became the first Islamic Turkic
dynasty in the tenth century when Sultan Satuq
Bughra Khan converted to Islam in 966 and
controlled Kashgar. Satuq Bughra Khan and
his son directed endeavors to preach Islam
among the Turks and engage in conquests. Satok
Bughra Khan's nephew or grandson Ali Arslan
was slain by the Buddhists during the war.
Buddhism lost territory to the Turkic Karakhanid
Satok Bughra Khan during the Karakhanid reign
around the Kashgar area. The Tarim Basin became
Islamicized over the next few centuries.
==== Turkic-Islamic Kara-Khanid conquest of
Iranic Saka Buddhist Khotan ====
In the tenth century, the Buddhist Iranic
Saka Kingdom of Khotan was the only city-state
that was not conquered yet by the Turkic Uyghur
(Buddhist) and the Turkic Qarakhanid (Muslim)
states. The Buddhist entitites of Dunhuang
and Khotan had a tight-knit partnership, with
intermarriage between Dunhuang and Khotan's
rulers and Dunhuang's Mogao grottos and Buddhist
temples being funded and sponsored by the
Khotan royals, whose likenesses were drawn
in the Mogao grottoes. Halfway in the 10th
century Khotan came under attack by the Qarakhanid
ruler Musa, a long war ensued between the
Turkic Karakhanid and Buddhist Khotan which
eventually ended in the conquest of Khotan
by Kashgar by the Karakhanid leader Yusuf
Qadir Khan around 1006.
Accounts of the Muslim Karakhanid war against
the Khotanese Buddhists are given in Taẕkirah
of the Four Sacrificed Imams written sometime
in the period from 1700-1849 which told the
story of four imams from Mada'in city (possibly
in modern-day Iraq) who travelled to help
the Islamic conquest of Khotan, Yarkand, and
Kashgar by Yusuf Qadir Khan, the Qarakhanid
leader. The "infidels" were defeated and driven
towards Khotan by Yusuf Qadir Khan and the
four Imams, but the Imams were assassinated
by the Buddhists prior to the last Muslim
victory. After Yusuf Qadir Khan's conquest
of new land in Altishahr towards the east,
he adopted the title "King of the East and
China".In 1006, the Muslim Kara-Khanid ruler
Yusuf Kadir (Qadir) Khan of Kashgar conquered
Khotan, ending Khotan's existence as an independent
state. The Islamic conquest of Khotan led
to alarm in the east and Dunhuang's Cave 17,
which contained Khotanese literary works,
was closed shut possibly after its caretakers
heard that Khotan's Buddhist buildings were
razed by the Muslims, the Buddhist religion
had suddenly ceased to exist in Khotan. The
Karakhanid Turkic Muslim writer Mahmud al-Kashgari
recorded a short Turkic language poem about
the conquest:
==== Conversion of the Buddhist Uyghurs ====
The Buddhist Uyghurs of the Kingdom of Qocho
and Turfan embraced Islam after conversion
at the hands of the Muslim Chagatai Khizr
Khwaja.Kara Del was a Mongolian ruled and
Uighur populated Buddhist Kingdom. The Muslim
Chagatai Khan Mansur invaded and used the
sword to make the population convert to Islam.After
being converted to Islam, the descendants
of the previously Buddhist Uyghurs in Turfan
believed that the "infidel Kalmuks" (Dzungars)
were the ones who built Buddhist monuments
in their area, in opposition to the current
academic theory that it was their own ancestral
legacy.
=== Qing dynasty ===
Xinjiang did not exist as one unit until 1884
under Qing rule. It consisted of the two separate
political entities of Dzungaria and the Tarim
Basin (Eastern Turkestan). Dzungharia or Ili
was called Zhunbu 準部 (Dzungar region)
Tianshan Beilu 天山北路 (Northern March),
"Xinjiang" 新疆 (New Frontier), or "Kalmykia"
(La Kalmouquie in French). It was formerly
the area of the Dzungar (or Zunghar) Khanate
準噶爾汗國, the land of the Dzungar people.
The Tarim Basin was known as "Tianshan Nanlu
天山南路 (southern March), Huibu 回部
(Muslim region), Huijiang 回疆 (Muslim frontier),
Chinese Turkestan, Kashgaria, Little Bukharia,
East Turkestan", and the traditional Uyghur
name for it was Altishahr (Uyghur: التى
شهر, Алтә-шәһәр‎, ULY: Altä-shähär).
It was formerly the area of the Eastern Chagatai
Khanate 東察合台汗國, land of the Uyghur
people before being conquered by the Dzungars.
== People of Tarim Basin ==
According to census figures, the Tarim Basin
is dominated by the Uyghurs. They form the
majority population in cities such as Kashgar,
Artush, and Hotan. There are however large
pockets of Han Chinese in the region, such
as Aksu and Korla. There are also smaller
numbers of Hui and other ethnic groups, for
example, the Tajiks who are concentrated at
Tashkurgan in the Kashgar Prefecture, the
Kyrgyz in Kizilsu, and the Mongols in Bayingolin.The
discovery of the Tarim mummies showed that
the early people of the Tarim Basin were Europoids.
According to Sinologist Victor H. Mair: "From
around 1800BC, the earliest mummies in the
Tarim Basin were exclusively Caucasoid, or
Europoid." He also said that East Asian migrants
arriving in the eastern portions of the Tarim
Basin around 3,000 years ago, and the Uyghur
peoples "arrived after the collapse of the
Orkon Uighur Kingdom, based in modern-day
Mongolia, around the year 842." He also noted
that the people of Xinjiang are a mixture:
"Modern DNA and ancient DNA show that Uighurs,
Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, the peoples of central Asia
are all mixed Caucasian and East Asian. The
modern and ancient DNA tell the same story."
Professor James A. Millward described the
original Uyghurs as physically Mongoloid,
giving as an example the images in Bezeklik
at Temple 9 of the Uyghur patrons, until they
began to mix with the Tarim Basin's original
eastern Iranian inhabitants.The modern Uyghurs
are now a mixed hybrid of East Asians and
Europoids.
== Archaeology ==
Although archaeological findings are of interest
in the Tarim Basin, the prime impetus for
exploration was petroleum and natural gas.
Recent research with help of GIS database
have provided a fine-grained analysis of the
ancient oasis of Niya on the Silk Road. This
research led to significant findings; remains
of hamlets with wattle and daub structures
as well as farm land, orchards, vineyards,
irrigation pools and bridges. The oasis at
Niya preserves the ancient landscape. Here
also have been found hundreds of 3rd and 4th
century wooden accounting tablets at several
settlements across the oasis. These texts
are in the Kharosthi script native to today's
Pakistan and Afghanistan. The texts are legal
documents such as tax lists, and contracts
containing detailed information pertaining
to the administration of daily affairs.
Additional excavations have unearthed tombs
with mummies, tools, ceramic works, painted
pottery and other artistic artifacts. Such
diversity was encouraged by the cultural contacts
resulting from this area's position on the
Silk Road. Early Buddhist sculptures and murals
excavated at Miran show artistic similarities
to the traditions of Central Asia and North
India and stylistic aspects of paintings found
there suggest that Miran had a direct connection
with the West, specifically Rome and its provinces.
== See also ==
Tocharians
Geography of China
Silk Road transmission of Buddhism
Kara-Khanid Khanate
Kunlun Mountains
Flaming Mountains
Taklamakan Desert
Tarim mummies
Turpan water system
== Notes ==
== 
References ==
Baumer, Christoph. 2000. Southern Silk Road:
In the Footsteps of Sir Aurel Stein and Sven
Hedin. White Orchid Books. Bangkok.
Bellér-Hann, Ildikó (2008). Community Matters
in Xinjiang, 1880-1949: Towards a Historical
Anthropology of 
the Uyghur. Brill. ISBN 9004166750.
Hill, John E. 2004. The Peoples of the West
from the Weilue 魏略 by Yu Huan 魚豢:
A Third Century Chinese Account Composed between
239 and 265 CE. Draft annotated English translation.
[1]
Hill, John E. (2009) Through the Jade Gate
to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during
the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries
CE. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina.
ISBN 978-1-4392-2134-1.
Mallory, J.P. and Mair, Victor H. 2000. The
Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery
of the Earliest Peoples from the West. Thames
& Hudson. London. ISBN 0-500-05101-1
Edme Mentelle; Malte Conrad Brun (dit Conrad)
Malte-Brun; Pierre-Etienne Herbin de Halle
(1804). Géographie mathématique, physique
& politique de toutes les parties du monde,
Volume 12. H. Tardieu. Retrieved 10 March
2014.
Millward, James A. (1998). Beyond the Pass:
Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central
Asia, 1759-1864 (illustrated ed.). Stanford
University Press. ISBN 0804729336. Retrieved
10 March 2014.
Stein, Aurel M. 1907. Ancient Khotan: Detailed
report of archaeological explorations in Chinese
Turkestan, 2 vols. Clarendon Press. Oxford.
[2]
Stein, Aurel M. 1921. Serindia: Detailed report
of explorations in Central Asia and westernmost
China, 5 vols. London & Oxford. Clarendon
Press. Reprint: Delhi. Motilal Banarsidass.
1980. [3]
Stein Aurel M. 1928. Innermost Asia: Detailed
report of explorations in Central Asia, Kan-su
and Eastern Iran, 5 vols. Clarendon Press.
Reprint: New Delhi. Cosmo Publications. 1981.
== External links ==
Downloadable article: "Evidence that a West-East
admixed population lived in the Tarim Basin
as early as the early Bronze Age" Li et al.
BMC Biology 2010, 8:15. [4]
Silk Road Seattle - University of Washington
(The Silk Road Seattle website contains many
useful resources including a number of full-text
historical works)
The International Dunhuang Project
Along the ancient silk routes: Central Asian
art from the West Berlin State Museums, an
exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum
of Art (fully available online as PDF), which
contains material from the Tarim Basin
