Loulan – A Lost Kingdom in TaklamakanTo the east of the Niya ruins is another world-famous city ruins, that of the Loulan Kingdom, which was swallowed up by the shifting sands of the Taklamakan Desert some 1,400 years ago. In this edition of On the Road we’ll continue our adventure in the lifeless desert and explore the ruins of the ancient Loulan Kingdom. In the south of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China lies the country’s largest inland basin, the Tarim Basin. It has been the home of 36 independent city states. However, as the Taklamakan Desert inexorably expanded, all the kingdoms were gradually swallowed by the shifting sand dunes, which can reach a height of 250 meters. Loulan was one of the kingdoms that lost this battle with nature. The ruins of the kingdom are located on the western bank of Lake Lop Nur, in the northeast of the Tarim Basin. Once a vast lake in ancient times, today Lop Nur has entirely dried up. It is now a lake only in name. Records of the Loulan Kingdom abound in major historical works in both China and the West of over 1600 years ago. Founded in the second century BC, Loulan was a sprawling kingdom of 360 thousand square kilometers whose domain bordered Dunhuang in the east and Niya city in the west. It had a population of over 14,000 people，and as a key traffic hub on the ancient Silk Road, it served as an important trading center between China and the West, welcoming streams of camel trains loaded with exotic goods from many parts of the world. Many of the visitors and caravans were from the Mediterranean region. Loulan’s prosperity lasted for some 500 years, then, in the 5th century, it suddenly vanished from all ...
