Taklamakan desert

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Taklamakan desert

Taklamakan desert (Taklimakan, Teklimakan, 塔克拉玛干沙漠) is a desert in northwest China, in the southwest portion of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is bounded by the Kunlun Mountains (Хөндлөн Уулс) to the south, and the desert Pamir Mountains and Tian Shan (ancient Mount Imeon) to the west and north. The present population consists largely of Turkic Uyghur people.
Taklamakan is a paradigmatic cold desert climate. Given its relative proximity with the cold to frigid air masses in Siberia, extreme lows are recorded in wintertime, sometimes well below −20 °C (−4 °F).