A report on Xinjiang and Tarim Basin

In the years following Tang Taizong's subjugation of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, the emperor began to exert his military power toward the oasis city-states of the Tarim Basin (part of the area known in Chinese histories as the Western Regions).

Qu Wentai also entered into an alliance with Ashina Bobu against a Tang ally, Yiwu (伊吾), in modern Hami, Xinjiang), as well as Yanqi.

The core of the Dzungar Khanate is today part of northern Xinjiang, also called Dzungaria.

Between 1680 and 1688, the Dzungars conquered the Tarim Basin, which is now southern Xinjiang, and defeated the Khalkha Mongols to the east.

The Russian geographer Nikolaĭ Khanykov questioned the latitudinal definition of Central Asia and preferred a physical one of all countries located in the region landlocked from water, including Afghanistan, Khorasan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uyghuristan (Xinjiang), and Uzbekistan.

Tocharian, another Indo-European language group, which was once predominant in oases on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin of Xinjiang, is now extinct.

The "Western Regions" referred to areas west of Yumen Pass, especially the Tarim Basin.

These areas would later be termed Altishahr (southern Xinjiang, excluding Dzungaria) by Turkic-speaking peoples.

The Southern Xinjiang railway or Nanjiang railway, is a railway between Turpan and Kashgar in Xinjiang, China.

The railway is 1446 km in length and runs along the southern slope of the Tian Shan mountain range, connecting all major cities and towns of the Northern Tarim Basin, including Turpan, Hejing, Yanqi, Korla, Luntai (Bügür), Kuqa, Toksu (Xinhe), Aksu, Maralbexi (Bachu), Artux, and Kashgar.

The Turkic peoples were descended from a Transeurasian agricultural community based in northeast China, and they were not recognized as native to the Xinjiang until the area was settled in by Tang-allied Türk (Tujue) tribes in the 7th century, and later by Turkic Uyghur people who founded the Qocho Kingdom there in the 9th century.

The historical area of what is modern-day Xinjiang consisted of the distinct areas of the Tarim Basin (also known as Altishahr) and Dzungaria and was populated by Indo-European Tocharians and Saka peoples, who practiced Buddhism.

The Gurbantünggüt Desert (Құрбантұңғыт шөлі; ) occupies a large part of the Dzungarian Basin in Northern Xinjiang, in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.

It is China's (and Xinjiang's) second largest desert, after the Taklamakan Desert, which is in the Tarim Basin.

The Tang campaign against Karakhoja, known as Gaochang in Chinese sources, was a military campaign in 640 CE conducted by Emperor Taizong of the Tang dynasty against the Tarim Basin kingdom of Karakhoja, based in the city of Turfan in Xinjiang.

The Tarim River (تارىم دەرياسى), known in Sanskrit as the Śītā, is an endorheic river in Xinjiang, China.

It is the principal river of the Tarim Basin, a desert region of Central Asia between the Tian Shan and Kunlun Mountains.

The Kara-Khanid Khanate originated from a confederation formed some time in the 9th century by Karluks, Yagmas, Chigils, Tuhsi, and other peoples living in Zhetysu, Western Tian Shan (modern Kyrgyzstan), and Western Xinjiang around Kashgar.

Much of the realm of the Kara-Khanid Khanate, including Transoxiana and the western Tarim Basin, had been under the rule of the Tang dynasty prior to the Battle of Talas in 751, and the Kara-Khanid rulers continued to identify their dynasty with China several centuries later.