]] The Taklamakan Desert (Takelamagan Shamo, ???????), also known as Taklimakan, is a desert of Central Asia, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. It is bounded by Kunlun Mountains to the south, and Pamir Mountains and Tian Shan (ancient Mount Imeon) to the west and north. Taklamakan is known as one of the largest sandy deserts in the world, ranking 15th in size in a ranking of the world's largest non-polar deserts.It covers an area of 270,000 km² of the Tarim Basin, 1,000 km long and 400 km 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.In recent years, the People's Republic of China has constructed a cross-desert highway that links the cities of Hotan (on the southern edge) and Luntai (on the northern edge). between the Kunlun and Altun mountain ranges fo