Yarkant

Yarkant County, officially called Shache County, also transliterated from Uyghur as Yakan County is a county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, positioned at the southern rim of the Taklamakan desolate tract in the Tarim Basin. It is certainly one of eleven counties administered below Kashgar Prefecture. The county typically written "Yarkant" or "Yarkand" in English, was the seat of an historical Buddhist kingdom on the southern department of the Silk Road.

The county sits at an altitude of 1,189 metres and as of 2003 had a populace of 373,492. The fertile oasis is fed by the Yarkand River which flows north down from the Karakorum mountains and passes through Kunlun Mountains recognized historically as Congling mountains. The oasis now covers 3,210 rectangular kilometres, however turned into in all likelihood a ways greater enormous before a duration of desiccation affected the area from the 3rd century CE onwards.

Today, Yarkant is a predominantly Uyghur settlement. The irrigated oasis farmland produces cotton, wheat, corn, culmination, and walnuts. Yak and sheep graze in the highlands. Mineral deposits consist of petroleum, natural fuel, gold, copper, lead, bauxite, granite and coal.