Yueyaquan () is a crescent-shaped

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

in an

oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

, 6 km south of the city of

Dunhuang Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major s ...

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibe ...

Province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions out ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

History

The lake was named Yueyaquan in the

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

Mildred Cable Alice Mildred Cable () (21 February 1878 – 30 April 1952) was a British Protestant Christian missionary in China, serving with the China Inland Mission. Early life and career Born in Guildford. the daughter of John Cable, a prosperous drap ...

and

Francesca French Francesca Law French (; 12 December 1871 – 2 August 1960) was a British Protestant Christian missionary in China. She served with the China Inland Mission. Early career French was born in Bruges, Belgium, the second daughter of English paren ...

visited the lake during their travels in the region in 1932 and recorded their impressions in their book ''The Gobi Desert'': "All around us we saw tier on tier of lofty sand-hills, giving the lie to our quest, yet when, with a final desperate effort, we hoisted ourselves over the last ridge and looked down on what lay beyond, we saw the lake below, and its beauty was entrancing." According to measurements made in 1960, the average depth of the lake was , with a maximum depth of . In the following 40 years, the depth of the lake declined by more than . In the early 1990s, it had shrunk to an average depth of one meter. In 2006, the local government with help of the central government started to fill the lake and restore its depth; its depth and size have been growing yearly since then. Proposed groundwater diversions are modeled to raise the water table and level of the lake. The lake and the surrounding deserts are very popular with tourists, who are offered camel and all-terrain vehicle rides.

References

Dunhuang Bodies of water of Gansu Lakes of China Oases of China {{Gansu-geo-stub