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The Tarim Basin is one of the largest endorheic drainage basins in the world, lying between several mountain ranges in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China's far west. Much of the basin is dominated by the Taklamakan Desert. The area is sparsely settled by Uyghurs and other central Asian peoples, as well as by Han Chinese, many of them recent immigrants to the area from other parts of China.
The Silk road in the Tarim Basin between Kashgar () and Yumen () split in two routes, along the northern and the southern edges of the Taklamakan. Cities along each branch (from West to East) include:
Formerly the Tocharian languages were spoken in the Tarim Basin. They were the easternmost of the Indo-European languages. The Chinese name "Yuezhi" (Chinese 月氏; Wade-Giles: Yüeh-Chih) denoted an ancient Central Asian people settled in modern Gansu, who, vanquished by the Xiongnu- Hun-nu , later migrated toward Tarim Basin and southward to form the Kushan Empire in northern India.
The Chinese managed to take control of the Tarim Basin from the Xiongnu at the end of the 1st century CE under the leadership of general Ban Chao (32-102 CE).
The powerful Kushans expanded back into the Tarim Basin in the 1st-2nd centuries CE, where they established a kingdom in Kashgar and competed for control of the area with nomads and Chinese forces. They introduced the Brahmi script, the Indian Prakrit language for administration, and Buddhism, playing a central role in the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism to Eastern Asia.
Lop Nur, a saline marshy depression at the east end of the Tarim Basin, is a nuclear test site for the People's Republic of China. The Tarim River empties into the Lop Nur.
The Tarim Basin is thought to contain large reserves of petroleum and natural gas.
Interestingly enough, the snow on K2, the second highest mountain in the world flows off into glaciers, which move down the valleys to melt, forming river water which winds its way down out of the mountains to finally end up in the Tarim Basin. These waters never find the sea. In the midst of the deserts all around they feed the oases, are pumped off for agriculture, and some finally make it to a set of salt lakes and marshes where they evaporate.
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