What Does Taklamakan Mean?

Taklamakan is the name of a desert region situated in Central Asia and covering an area of about 270,000 sq km; the desert also referred to as Taklimakan lies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region the westernmost part of the People's Republic of China.

The desert is unique in the sense that most of it comprises almost entirely of sand with other features like rocks and hills, semi arid regions and oases being significantly less as compared to deserts around the world; the desert is considered as an extension of the much larger Gobi Desert which extends eastward in to northern China and southern Mongolia.

There are various folklores regarding the origin and meaning of the word 'taklamakan' connoting desert of death or place of no return the exact meaning of the word having been lost to history; the term 'makan' means a place in Turkic. The ancient silk route passed along the border of the desert and a number of valuable archeological finds have been discovered in the region; the oases towns located in the region are Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan, Kuqa and Turfan.