Lop Nur or Lop Nor (, , from an Oirat Mongolic name meaning "Lop Lake", where "Lop" is a

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''wikt:toponym, toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for ...

of unknown origin) is a now largely dried-up

salt lake A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per liter). I ...

formerly located within the ''Lop Depression'' in the eastern fringe of the

Tarim Basin The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Xinjiang, Northwestern China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, Ch ...

in the southeastern portion of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, northwestern China, between the

Taklamakan The Taklamakan Desert ( ) is a desert in northwest China's Xinjiang region. Located inside the Tarim Basin in Southern Xinjiang, it is bounded by the Kunlun Mountains to the south, the Pamir Mountains to the west, the Tian Shan range to the n ...

and Kumtag deserts. Administratively, the lake is in Lop Nur

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

(), also known as Luozhong () of

Ruoqiang County Ruoqiang County ( zh, s= ) as the official romanized name, also SASM/GNC romanization#Uyghur, transliterated from Uyghur as Qakilik County (; zh, links=no , s=卡克里克县), is a County (China), county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region ...

, which in its turn is part of the

Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture in the southeastern Xinjiang, China. It borders Gansu to the east, Qinghai to the southeast and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the south. It is the largest prefecture-level div ...

. The lake system, into which the Tarim River and

Shule River The Shule River ( zh, c=疏勒河, p=Shūlè Hé) is the second largest inland river in Gansu Province, China, and one of the three major inland river systems in the Hexi Corridor. Water system The Shule River system is composed of the main st ...

drain from the west and east respectively, is the last remnant of the historical post-glacial Tarim Lake, which once covered more than in the

but had progressively shrunk throughout the

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

due to

rain shadow A rain shadow is an area of significantly reduced rainfall behind a mountainous region, on the side facing away from prevailing winds, known as its leeward side. Evaporated moisture from body of water, bodies of water (such as oceans and larg ...

ing by the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or Qingzang Plateau, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South, and East Asia. Geographically, it is located to the north of H ...

. Lop Nur is hydrologically

endorheic An endorheic basin ( ; also endoreic basin and endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water (e.g. rivers and oceans); instead, the water drainage flows into permanent ...

, it is landbound and has no outlet, and has relied largely on

meltwater Meltwater (or melt water) is water released by the melting of snow or ice, including glaciers, glacial ice, tabular icebergs and ice shelf, ice shelves over oceans. Meltwater is often found during early spring (season), spring when snow packs a ...

runoffs from the Tianshan,

Kunlun The Kunlun Mountains constitute one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending for more than . In the broadest sense, the chain forms the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau south of the Tarim Basin. Located in Western China, the Kunlu ...

and the western

Qilian Mountains The Qilian Mountains (), together with the Altyn-Tagh sometimes known as the Nan Shan, as it is to the south of the Hexi Corridor, is a northern outlier of the Kunlun Mountains, forming the border between Qinghai and the Gansu provinces of n ...

. The lake measured in 1928, but has dried up due to construction of

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

s which

dam A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, aqua ...

med the flow of water feeding into the lake, and only small

seasonal lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from t ...

s and

salt marsh A salt marsh, saltmarsh or salting, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. I ...

es may form. The dried-up Lop Nur Basin is covered with a salt crust ranging from in thickness. An area to the northwest of Lop Nur has been used as a nuclear testing site. Since the discovery of

potash Potash ( ) includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water- soluble form.

at the site in the mid-1990s, it is also the location of a large-scale mining operation. There are some restricted areas under military management and cultural relics protection points in the region, which are not open to the public.

History

Map of the Lop Nor region by Folke Bergman 1935

From around 1800 BC until the 9th century the lake supported a thriving Tocharian culture.

Archaeologists Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

have discovered the buried remains of settlements, as well as several of the

Tarim mummies The Tarim mummies are a series of Mummy, mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from Tarim Basin#Early periods, 1800 BCE to the first centuries BCE, with a new group of individuals recently dated to betw ...

, along its ancient shoreline. Former water resources of the Tarim River and Lop Nur nurtured the kingdom of

Loulan Loulan ( zh, t=, p=Lóulán <

Eastern Han Chinese

''lo-lɑn'' <

Silk Road The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over , it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the ...

, which skirted the lake-filled basin. Loulan became a client state of the Chinese empire in 55 BC, renamed Shanshan.

Faxian Faxian (337–), formerly romanization of Chinese, romanized as Fa-hien and Fa-hsien, was a Han Chinese, Chinese Chinese Buddhism, Buddhist bhikkhu, monk and translator who traveled on foot from Eastern Jin dynasty, Jin China to medieval India t ...

went by the

Lop Desert The Lop Desert, or the Lop Depression, is a desert extending from Korla eastwards along the foot of the Kuruk-tagh (meaning Dry Mountain) to the former terminal Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. It is an almost pe ...

on his way to the

Indus valley The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans- Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in the Western Tibet region of China, flows northwest through the disp ...

(395–414), followed by later Chinese pilgrims.

Marco Polo Marco Polo (; ; ; 8 January 1324) was a Republic of Venice, Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known a ...

in his travels passed through the

. In the 19th century and early 20th century, the explorers Ferdinand von Richthofen, Nikolai Przhevalsky, Sven Hedin and

Aurel Stein Sir Marc Aurel Stein, (; 26 November 1862 – 26 October 1943) was a Hungarian-born British archaeologist, primarily known for his explorations and archaeological discoveries in Central Asia. He was also a professor at Indian universities. ...

visited and studied the area. It is also likely that Swedish soldier Johan Gustaf Renat had visited the area when he was helping the Zunghars to produce maps over the area in the eighteenth century. The lake was given various names in ancient Chinese texts. In ''

Shiji The ''Shiji'', also known as ''Records of the Grand Historian'' or ''The Grand Scribe's Records'', is a Chinese historical text that is the first of the Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written during the late 2nd and early 1st cen ...

'' it was called Yan Ze (鹽澤, literally Salt Marsh), indicating its saline nature, near which was located the ancient Loulan Kingdom. In ''

Hanshu The ''Book of Han'' is a history of China finished in 111 CE, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. The work was composed by Ban Gu (32–92 CE), ...

'' it was called Puchang Hai (蒲昌海, literally Sea of Abundant Reed) and was given a dimension of 300 to 400 '' li'' (roughly 120–160 km) in length and breadth,Hanshu
Original text: 蒲昌海，一名鹽澤者也，去玉門、陽關三百餘里，廣袤三四百里。其水亭居，冬夏不增減，皆以為潛行地下，南出於積石，為中國河雲. Translation: Puchang Hai, also named Yan Ze, lies over 300 ''li'' from the Yumen and Yangguan Pass, and is 300 to 400 ''li'' in length and breadth. Its waters are stagnant, and do not increase or decrease during the winter or summer. It is generally believed that the water flows hidden underground, emerges south at Jishi, and becomes the Chinese River (meaning

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

). indicating it was once a lake of great size. These early texts also mentioned the belief, mistaken as it turns out, that the lake joins the

at Jishi through an underground channel as the source of the river. The lake was referred to as the "Wandering Lake" in the early 20th century due to the Tarim River changing its course, causing its terminal lake to alter its location between the Lop Nur dried basin, the Kara-Koshun dried basin and the Taitema Lake basin. This shift of the terminal lake caused some confusion amongst the early explorers as to the exact location of Lop Nur. Imperial maps from the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

showed Lop Nur to be located in similar position to the present Lop Nur dried basin, but the Russian geographer Nikolay Przhevalsky instead found the terminal lake at Kara-Koshun in 1867. Sven Hedin visited the area in 1900–1901 and suggested that the Tarim river periodically changed its course to and from between its southbound and northbound direction, resulting in a shift in the position of the terminal lake. The change in the course of the river, which resulted in Lop Nur drying up, was also suggested by Hedin as the reason why ancient settlements such as Loulan had perished. In 1921, due to human intervention, the terminal lake shifted its position back to Lop Nur. The lake measured 2400 km² in area in 1930–1931. In 1934, Sven Hedin went down the new Kuruk Darya ("Dry River") in a canoe. He found the delta to be a maze of channels and the new lake so shallow that it was difficult to navigate even in a canoe. He had previously walked the dry Kuruk Darya in a caravan in 1900. In 1952 the terminal lake then shifted to Taitema Lake when the Tarim River and Konque River were separated through human intervention, and Lop Nur dried out again by 1964. In 1972, the Daxihaizi Reservoir was built at Tikanlik, water supply to the lake was cut off, and all the lakes for the most part then dried out, with only small seasonal lakes forming in local depressions in Taitema. The loss of water to the lower Tarim River Valley also led to the deterioration and loss of poplar forests and

tamarix The genus ''Tamarix'' (tamarisk, salt cedar, taray) is composed of about 50–60 species of flowering plants in the family Tamaricaceae, native to drier areas of Eurasia and Africa. The generic name originated in Latin and may refer to the Ta ...

shrubs that used to be extensively distributed along the lower Tarim River Valley forming the so-called "Green Corridor". In 2000, in an effort to prevent further deterioration of the ecosystem, water was diverted from Lake Bosten in an attempt to fill the Taitema Lake. The Taitema Lake however had shifted westwards during the past 40 years due in part to the spread of the desert. Another cause of the destabilization of the desert has been the cutting of poplars and willows for firewood; in response, a restoration project to reclaim the poplar forests was initiated. The Kara-Koshun dried basin may be considered part of the greater Lop Nur. On 17 June 1980, Chinese scientist Peng Jiamu disappeared while walking into Lop Nur in search of water. His body was never found, and his disappearance remains a mystery. On 3 June 1996, the Chinese explorer Yu Chunshun died while trying to walk across Lop Nur.

Nuclear weapons test base

Lop Nur, situated in the arid Xinjiang region of China's far west, serves as an extensive military base. This location was selected for nuclear testing due to its desolate and isolated nature, devoid of any permanent inhabitants, though the broader Xinjiang region is home to the

Uyghurs The Uyghurs,. alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central Asia and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as the ti ...

, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group that has historically faced widespread detentions and stringent security measures in

Xinjiang conflict The Xinjiang conflict ( zh, c=新疆冲突, p=xīnjiāng chōngtú), also known as the East Turkistan conflict, Uyghur–Chinese conflict or Sino-East Turkistan conflict (as argued by the East Turkistan Government-in-Exile), is an ethnic g ...

. The Uyghurs have persistently voiced concerns regarding the health risks posed by the towering mushroom clouds and the release of radioactive fallout. China established the Lop Nur Nuclear Test Base on 16 October 1959 with

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

assistance in selection of the site, with its headquarters at Malan (, ''Mǎlán''), about northwest of Qinggir. The first Chinese nuclear bomb test, codenamed "

Project 596 Project 596 (Miss Qiu, , as the callsign; Chic-1 by the US intelligence agencies) was the first nuclear weapons Nuclear testing, test conducted by the People's Republic of China, detonated on 16 October 1964, at the Lop Nur test site. It was a ura ...

", occurred at Lop Nur on 16 October 1964. China detonated its first

hydrogen bomb A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lo ...

on 17 June 1967. Until 1996, 45 nuclear tests were conducted. These nuclear tests were conducted by dropping bombs from aircraft, mounted on towers, launching missiles, detonating weapons underground and in the atmosphere. On 29 July 1996, China conducted its 45th and final nuclear test at Lop Nor, and issued a formal moratorium on nuclear testing the following day, although further subcritical tests were suspected. In 2012, China announced plans to spend US$1 million to clean up the Malan nuclear base in Lop Nor to create a red tourism site. In December 2023, a report emerged indicating that China was making preparations to resume nuclear tests in a remote desert. Satellite imagery provided evidence of these preparations, revealing the presence of a

drilling rig A drilling rig is an integrated system that Drilling, drills wells, such as oil or water wells, or holes for piling and other construction purposes, into the earth's subsurface. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to ...

that had created a deep vertical shaft. This shaft was believed to be designed to contain the destructive power of radiation resulting from large nuclear explosions. Further analysis of the satellite images since 2017 also uncovered the development of new infrastructure at the site. This included the construction of new roads, power lines, an electrical substation, and a support area with multiple buildings. What was once a modest site with only a few buildings had transformed into a modern and sophisticated complex, complete with security fences. One of the new structures was a bunker that was fortified with earthen berms and lightning arresters, indicating its suitability for handling high explosives. Tests on

miniaturization Miniaturization ( Br.Eng.: ''miniaturisation'') is the trend to manufacture ever-smaller mechanical, optical, and electronic products and devices. Examples include miniaturization of mobile phones, computers and vehicle engine downsizing. In ele ...

of missiles and warheads can also be possibly carried out at this site. However, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has dismissed the report and its "utterly irresponsible" claims. China has denied any nuclear testing plans on the site.

Ecology

Lop Nur is home to the

wild Bactrian camel The wild Bactrian camel (''Camelus ferus'') is an endangered species of camel endemic to Northwest China and southwestern Mongolia. It is closely related but not ancestral to the domestic Bactrian camel (''Camelus bactrianus''). Genetics, Geneti ...

, which is a separate species from the

Bactrian camel The Bactrian camel (''Camelus bactrianus''), also known as the Mongolian camel, domestic Bactrian camel or two-humped camel, is a camel native to the steppes of Central Asia. It has two humps on its back, in contrast to the single-humped drome ...

. The camels have continued to breed naturally despite the nuclear testing. China signed the

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is a multilateral treaty to ban nuclear weapons test explosions and any other nuclear explosions, for both civilian and military purposes, in all environments. It was adopted by the United Nati ...

in 1996 but did not ratify it. Subsequently, the camels were classified as an

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

on the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological ...

. Since the cessation of nuclear testing at Lop Nur, human incursions into the area have caused a decline in the camel population. Wild Bactrian camels have been classified as

critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

since 2002 and approximately half of the 1400 remaining wild Bactrian camels live on the former Lop Nur test base, which has been designated the Lop Nur Wild Camel National Nature Reserve.

Transportation

A highway from

Hami Hami ( zh, c=哈密) or Kumul () is a prefecture-level city in eastern Xinjiang, China. It is well known for sweet Hami melons. In early 2016, the former Hami county-level city merged with Hami Prefecture to form the Hami prefecture-level city ...

to Lop Nur (Xinjiang Provincial Highway 235) was completed in 2006. The Hami–Lop Nur Railway, which runs north to Hami, along the same route, opened to freight operations in November 2012. The railway is used to transport potassium-rich salt mined at the lake to the Lanzhou–Xinjiang railway.China starts building railway into "sea of death"
, gov.cn, Thursday, 4 March 2010 It is also served by the Hotan–Ruoqiang railway, which loops around the south and west side of the

, part of the Taklimakan Desert railway loop, joined together with sections of the Golmud–Korla railway, Kashgar–Hotan railway, and Southern Xinjiang railway.

Archaeological sites

Given the extreme dryness and resulting thin population, remains of some buildings survived for a significant period of time. When ancient graves - some a few thousand years old - were opened, the bodies were often found to be mummified and grave goods well preserved. The earliest sites are associated with an ancient people of indigenous Siberian origin.

Loulan

Loulan or Kroran was an ancient kingdom based around an important oasis city already known in the 2nd century BCE on the north-eastern edge of the Lop Desert. It was renamed Shanshan after Chinese took control of the kingdom in 1st century BCE. It was abandoned some time in the seventh century. Its location was discovered by Sven Hedin in 1899, who excavated some houses and found a wooden

Kharosthi Kharosthi script (), also known as the Gandhari script (), was an ancient script originally developed in the Gandhara Region of modern-day Pakistan, between the 5th and 3rd century BCE. used primarily by the people of Gandhara alongside vari ...

tablet and many Chinese manuscripts from the Jin dynasty (266–420).

also excavated at the site in the beginning of the 20th century, while Chinese archaeologists explored the area in the latter part of the 20th century. A mummy called the Beauty of Loulan was found at a cemetery site on the bank of Töwän River.

Xiaohe Cemetery

The Xiaohe Cemetery is located to the west of Lop Nur. This

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

burial site is an oblong sand dune, from which more than thirty well preserved mummies have been excavated. The entire Xiaohe Cemetery contains about 330 tombs, about 160 of which have been violated by grave robbers. A local hunter guided the Swedish explorer and archeologist Folke Bergman to the site in 1934. An excavation project by the Xinjiang Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute began in October 2003. A total of 167 tombs have been dug up since the end of 2002 and excavations have revealed hundreds of smaller tombs built in layers, as well as other precious artifacts. In 2006, a valuable archeological finding was uncovered: a boat-shaped coffin wrapped in ox hide, containing the mummified body of a young woman.

Qäwrighul

In 1979, some of the earliest of the

were discovered in burial sites at Qäwrighul (Gumugou), which is located to the west of Lop Nur, on the Könchi (Kongque) river. Forty-two graves, most of which dated from 2100 to 1500 BC, were found. There were two types of tomb at the site, belonging to two different time periods. The first type of burial featured shaft pit graves, some of which had poles at either end to mark east and west. Bodies were found extended, usually facing east, and sometimes were wrapped in wool weavings and wearing felt hats. Artifacts found included basketry, wheat grains, cattle and sheep/goat horns, bird bone necklaces and bracelets, nephrite beads, and fragments of copper (or bronze), although no pottery was discovered. The second type of burial, from a later period, also consisted of shaft pit graves, surrounded by seven concentric circles of poles. Six male graves were found, in which the bodies were extended on their backs, and facing towards the east. Few artifacts were found, except for some traces of copper, or bronze.Kwang-tzuu Chen and Fredrik T. Hiebert (1995). "The Late Prehistory of Xinjiang in Relation to Its Neighbors". ''Journal of World Prehistory'' 9 (2): 243–300.

Miran

Miran is located to the south-west of Lop Nur. Buddhist monasteries were excavated here, and murals and sculptures showed artistic influences from

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

, with some showing influences from as far as

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

References

External links

Map of the Lop Nur nuclear test facility

DF-31 Tested on 10 June 1994

Surveying the Lop Nor
*
Salt Fields in Former “Wandering” Lake Lop Nur, China – May 13, 2009 – Earth Snapshot
* Downloadable article: "Evidence that a West-East admixed population lived in the Tarim Basin as early as the early Bronze Age" Li et al. ''BMC Biology'' 2010, 8:15

{{Authority control Endorheic lakes of Asia Chinese nuclear test sites Sites along the Silk Road Shrunken lakes Lakes of Xinjiang Ruoqiang County Tarim mummies Former lakes of Asia