A report on Xinjiang and Tarim Basin

Yarkant County, also Shache County, also transliterated from Uyghur as Yakan County, is a county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, located on the southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin.

The Kingdom of Khotan was an ancient Buddhist Saka kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin (modern Xinjiang, China).

Qianlong personally led the Ten Great Campaigns to expand military control into present-day Xinjiang and Mongolia, putting down revolts and uprisings in Sichuan and parts of southern China while expanding control over Tibet.

Xinjiang, also known as Chinese Turkestan, was subdivided into the regions north and south of the Tian Shan mountains, also known today as Dzungaria and Tarim Basin respectively, but the post of Ili General was established in 1762 to exercise unified military and administrative jurisdiction over both regions.

The Dzungars who lived in an area that stretched from the west end of the Great Wall of China to present-day eastern Kazakhstan and from present-day northern Kyrgyzstan to southern Siberia (most of which is located in present-day Xinjiang), were the last nomadic empire to threaten China, which they did from the early 17th century through the middle of the 18th century.

The Qing employed Khoja Emin in its campaign against the Dzungars and used him as an intermediary with Muslims from the Tarim Basin to inform them that the Qing were only aiming to kill Dzungars and that they would leave the Muslims alone, and also to convince them to kill the Dzungars themselves and side with the Qing since the Qing noted the Muslims' resentment of their former experience under Dzungar rule at the hands of Tsewang Araptan.

Altishahr (,, ; romanized: Altä-şähär or Alti-şähär), also known as Kashgaria, is a historical name for the Tarim Basin region used in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The term means 'Six Cities' in Turkic languages, referring to oasis towns along the rim of the Tarim, including Kashgar, in what is now southern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.

The Shule Kingdom (Chinese: 疏勒) was an ancient Iranian oasis kingdom of the Taklamakan Desert that was on the Northern Silk Road, in the historical Western Regions of what is now Xinjiang in Northwest China.

The Northern Silk Road that passed through Kashgar split off into the northern Tarim Basin route which ran from Kashgar over Aksu, Kucha, Korla, through the Iron Gate Pass, over Karasahr, Jiaohe, Turpan, Gaochang and Kumul to Anxi.

Aksu is a city in and the seat of Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang, lying at the northern edge of the Tarim Basin.

The Kunlun Mountains (, ; كۇئېنلۇن تاغ تىزمىسى) constitute one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending for more than 3000 km. In the broadest sense, the chain forms the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau south of the Tarim Basin.

From the Pamirs of Tajikistan, the Kunlun Mountains run east through southern Xinjiang to Qinghai province.

It flows from the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region to the Almaty Region in Kazakhstan.

The upper Ili Valley is separated from the Dzungarian Basin in the north (by the Borohoro Mountains), and from the Tarim Basin in the south (by the Tian Shan).

The Tang campaigns against Karasahr were two military campaigns sent by Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty against the Tarim Basin kingdom of Karasahr, a vassal of the Western Turkic Khaganate.

The city-state, which later became part of Xinjiang), may have been known to its inhabitants by the Tocharian name Agni, which was rendered Yanqi in Chinese sources.