New Highway for Desert in China - Silk Road Revisited

Silk Road ...

Xinjiang is home to the famous Taklimikan and Lop Nor deserts. It's also home to one-fifth of China's land area. Separating it from the Tibetan Plateau to the south are the soaring Altun and Kunlun mountains. To its west are Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan; to the north, Russia; and to the east, Mongolia and the rest of China.

At a cost of 0.8 billion yuan ( about 100 million US dollars), the Chinese Ministry of Communications is building China's longest domestic highway across the Taklimakan desert in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, according to People's Liberation Army Daily as announced in June of 2005
The "Aral to Hotan desert road" will be 424 kilometers in length. It will start at the city of Aral and end at the Hotan prefecture in the county of Lop.

The original route of the Silk Road , across the Lop Nor Desert and skirting the southern edge of the Taklimikan Desert , was abandoned in favour of a northern route due to the peril involved in crossing the Lop Nor.