Knowra Kashgar Kashgar Kashgar is a historic city in western Xinjiang, China, at the western edge of the Tarim Basin. It was a major oasis and trading center on routes linking Central Asia with China.
Silk Road : A network of trade routes that connected East Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Kashgar became a major oasis junction on routes crossing the Tarim Basin.
Tarim Basin : A large arid basin in southern Xinjiang, enclosed by mountain ranges and centered on the Taklamakan Desert. Kashgar lies at the basin’s western edge, where routes skirt the desert.
Mahmud al-Kashgari : An eleventh-century Turkic scholar who compiled the earliest known comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages. His name links Kashgar to the early documentation of Turkic language and culture.
Uyghurs : A Turkic people indigenous to Central and East Asia, with a large population in Xinjiang. Uyghur language and culture are central to Kashgar’s historic and present-day character.
Hotan : An oasis city in southern Xinjiang, China, historically known for jade and silk production. Hotan shares Kashgar’s oasis setting but lies farther east along the Tarim Basin’s southern rim.
Yarkand Khanate : A Central Asian state ruled by Chagatai Mongol descendants in the Tarim Basin from the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries. Its rulers made Kashgar an important political and religious center.
Taklamakan Desert : A vast desert in the Tarim Basin of Xinjiang, China. Its impassable interior pushed caravan traffic toward oasis towns such as Kashgar.
Yusuf Khass Hajib : An eleventh-century Turkic poet and statesman, author of the political poem Kutadgu Bilig. He is associated with Kashgar’s wider Karakhanid-era intellectual world.
Karakhanid Khanate : A medieval Turkic Muslim dynasty that ruled parts of Central Asia from the ninth to thirteenth centuries. Kashgar was a major center under the Karakhanids.
Yarkand : A historic oasis city in southern Xinjiang, China, southeast of Kashgar. Yarkand was a rival regional center within the same network of Tarim Basin routes.
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