Taklamakan Desert, is China's largest desert, is also the world's tenth largest desert, located in the Tarim Basin south of the Tianshan Mountains, the desert is about 1,000 kilometers long from east to west, about 400 kilometers wide from north to south, is an area of up to 330,000 square kilometers of terror zone.
Regarding the formation of the Taklamakan Desert, although there are different views in the industry, it is basically believed that a long time ago, this was a vast ocean.
It was only as the earth's crust moved that the Himalayas were constantly squeezed and lifted, finally blocking the exit, forming a huge inland lake. The arid desert seen so far is finally formed by the surrounding mountains blocking water vapor, constantly being buried by wind and sand and strong evaporation.
Himalayas
The surrounding area of the Taklamakan Desert is the Tianshan Mountains, the Kunlun Mountains, the Argin Mountains, the Karakoram Mountains and the Himalayas, and the desert is separated from the Arctic Ocean by more than 3,000 kilometers to the north and the Indian Ocean to the south by more than 2,000 kilometers.
More importantly, the Tarim Basin is only 800-1300 meters above sea level, compared with the Tianshan Mountains and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau above 4000 meters above sea level. It was almost like being surrounded by a wall.
Tianshan Mountain
However, in contrast to the Caspian Sea at about the same latitude, the Caspian Sea is currently the largest inland lake in the world, with an area of about 386,000 square kilometers, and its formation time, which is only 11,000 years old, is originally part of the Mediterranean Sea.
The Taklamakan Desert, despite its arid climate and constant movement, has formed many seasonal inland rivers due to snowmelt in the northern and southern mountains. The main rivers are tarim, Aksu, Yarkand, Hotan, Kriya and Chelchen.
Due to the overall topography of the Tarim Basin, which is high in the southwest and low in the northeast, most of the rivers flow to the Lop Nur area in the northeast corner, but the later environmental deterioration forced the Tarim River to be diverted, so it flowed south into Lake Taitma.
Xinjiang's large area is mainly because of the vast Gobi Desert, like the 330,000-square-kilometer Taklamakan, which is divided into four prefecture-level administrative regions. However, in the southern Xinjiang region where desertification is serious, there are about 10 million permanent residents living, and the population of the entire Xinjiang is only about 25 million.
The reason for all this is due to the nourishing irrigation of the Tarim Basin water system, along the banks of the Tarim River system, basically concentrated in the southern Xinjiang large oasis and the main population distribution, especially along the national highway 315, connecting almost all the towns south of the desert.
However, there is a place that is particularly magical, and it can also be called the city of miracles in the desert. This is the town of Tazhong, located in the heart of the desert.
Tazhong Township was officially established in 2015 as a place to provide daily supplies for oil workers and passing vehicles. There are no fixed villagers here, almost all of them are floating population, and supermarkets, restaurants, and hotels are all available.
Town of Tazhong
Therefore, in recent years, people who come to southern Xinjiang to travel through the desert, Tazhong Town is often a must-visit place.
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