Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang

The Taklamakan Desert is located in Southwest Xinjiang in Northwest China. It is bounded by the Kunlun Mountains to the south, the Pamir Mountains and Tian Shan to the west and north and the Gobi Desert to the east. Being the largest desert of China, it covers an area of 337,000 square kilometres making it slightly smaller than Germany and is part of the Tarim Basin, which is 1,000 kilometres long and 400 kilometres wide. It is crossed at its northern and at its southern edge by two branches of the Silk Road as travellers sought to avoid the arid wasteland. It is the world's second largest shifting sand desert with about 85% made up of shifting sand dunes ranking 16th in size in a ranking of the world's largest deserts.