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After the Dead Sea, the second lowest point on Earth is Turpan Depression, China's lowest spot at 154 meters below sea level. No place in China could be hotter than this city in Xinjiang Province, yet it served as an oasis town during the ancient Silk Road because of its karez or wells linked by underground channels. Apart from countering the 40-degree Celsius of heat, the karez are just some of the accomplishments of the Uyghurs, the people behind Turpan's Emin Minaret, Turpan Grape Gully, Turpan Gaochang Ancient City, Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves, and Jiaohe Ancient City.
Everywhere in Turpan, grapes are grown to be made into wine or raisins. Of the city's vineyards, the 200-hectare Turpan Grape Gully is king for growing China's best grapes for over a thousand years now. The gully is also hailed as "Green Pearl City" for being an oasis of foliage.
West and southeast of the city are its Silk Road ruins: Jiaohe Ancient City and Turpan Gaochang Ancient City. The former was created during the Western Han Dynasty, while the latter was an isolated garrison town established in the Gobi Desert during the 1st century BC. Gaochang itself is an ancient oasis city and a former bustling trading hub whose mud buildings were the stopovers of merchants trudging the Silk Route. A structure similar to those in Gaochang is Emin Minaret, erected in 1777 as reverence to a local hero, Emin Khoia.
The hottest spot in Turpan, as well as in the whole of China, is the red sandstone hills of Flaming Mountain, which garnered a recall as a setting in the mythological Chinese novel, Journey to the West. The thermometer next to the mountain is among China's largest. Tourists usually anticipate the rising of the mercury in the thermometer, until such time that it points to 50 degrees Celsius.
Under the mountains are the 1,000-square-meter, brightly-colored murals and 57 caves of Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves, Gaochang's Buddhist center built during the Tang, Song and Yuan Dynasties. At the Tarim Basin, the Yanbulaq Cemetery contains 29 well-preserved mummies of Mongoloids and Caucasians dating back to the Bronze Age.
Turpan photography
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