TAKLA MAKAN DESERT

The Tien Shan mountain range and the Takla Makan Desert. Chinese (Wade-Giles) T'a-k'o-la-ma-kan Sha-mo, or (Pinyin) Taklimakan Shamo, great desert of Central Asia and one of the largest sandy deserts in the world. The Takla Makan occupies the central part of the Tarim Basin in China. The desert area extends about 600 miles (960 kilometres) from west to east, and it has a maximum width of some 260 miles and a total area of approximately 105,000 square miles (272,000 square kilometres). The desert reaches elevations of 3,900 to 4,900 feet (1,200 to 1,500 metres) above sea level in the west and south and from 2,600 to 3,300 feet in the east and north. Chinese (Wade-Giles) T'a-k'o-la-ma-kan Sha-mo, or (Pinyin) Taklimakan Shamo, great desert of Central Asia, and one of the world's largest sandy wastes, occupying an area of 105,000 square miles (272,000 square km) in the central Tarim Basin in China. The Takla Makan Desert reaches elevations of 3,900 to 4,900 feet (1,200 to 1,500 m) in the west and south and 2,600 to 3,300 feet (800 to 1000 m) in the east and north. It is flanked by high mountain ranges including the Tien Shan to the north, the Kunlun Mountains to the south, and the Pamirs to the west; there is a gradual transition to the marshy Lop Nor basin in the east. The surface of the Takla Makan is composed of friable alluvial deposits several hundred feet thick, with a wind-blown sand cover as much as 1,000 feet (300 m) thick. As a result of the desert's complex wind conditions, there is a variety of wind-formed topographic features, among them pyramidal dunes reaching 650 to 1,000 feet in height. Two small mountain chains composed of sandstones and clays, the arc-shaped Mazar Mountains and the Chiao-lo (Chl) Mountains, rise in the western Takla Makan. The rivers draining the Kunlun Mountains penetrate from 60 to 120 miles (100 to 200 km) into the desert, gradually drying up in its sands. The climate is moderately warm and markedly continental in the Takla Makan. Precipitation is very low, ranging from 1.5 inches (38 mm) annually in the west to 0.4 inch (10 mm) in the east. Vegetation and animal life are very sparse, except in the few river valleys and the peripheral regions of the desert, and there is no fixed human population. The exploitation of vast petroleum reserves has been undertaken in both the northern and southern regions of the desert. Additional reading Information on the Takla Makan Desert is available in surveys of explorations in the area: Jack Autrey Dabbs, History of the Discovery and Exploration of Chinese Turkestan (1963), a comprehensive introduction with a bibliography; and Sven Hedin, Central Asia and Tibet, trans. from Swedish, 2 vol. (1903, reissued 1969), and Across the Goby Desert (1931, reprinted 1968; originally published in Swedish, 1928). Other records of archaeological and geographic explorations in the area include Aurel Stein, Ruins of Desert Cathay: Personal Narrative of Explorations in Central Asia and Westernmost China, 2 vol. (1912, reprinted 1987), and On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks: Brief Narrative of Three Expeditions in Innermost Asia and North-Western China (1933, reissued 1971); Owen Lattimore, Inner Asian Frontiers of China (1940, reprinted 1988); Paul Pelliot, Les Grottes de Touen-Houang: peintures and sculptures bouddhiques des poques des Wei, des T'ang, et des Song, 6 vol. in 4 (191424); Peter Hopkirk, Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia (1980); and Basil Davidson, Turkestan Alive: New Travels in Chinese Central Asia (1957). An overview of the contemporary economic and social situation is presented in Terry Cannon and Alan Jenkins (ed.), The Geography of Contemporary China: The Impact of Deng Xiaoping's Decade (1990). Guy S. Alitto