Turpan: Pearl of Silk Road

Turpan: Pearl of Silk Road Located at the southern foot of Tianshan Mountains, eastern part of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, Turpan used to be called Gaochang, Fireland in ancient times. Its splendid cultural relics and historic sites, scenes of graceful scenes of mountains,unique customs and practices of nationalities structure a scarce convergence of tourist resources. A series of superlatively wonderful natural landscape include the Flaming Mountains where no flying bird dare to come over, Grape Valley with grapes making the famous local wine: Anarhan. The Eidin lake is 155ms below the sea level, the Karez wells, a masterpiece of magnificent project of nongovernmental water conservancy, desert arboretum,Kumtagh desert, Panjer Grotesque Stone Forest, the Baiyang River Yadan Physiognomy But, Turpan’s historic heritage and cultural heritage are more gorgeous than its landscape. By now, there are as many as 178 historic sites and cultural sites have been discovered among which 6 sites include Jiaohe Ancient City, Gaochang Ancient City and the Bezklik Thousand-Budda Caves are key units of historic relics under state-level protection. Unearthed historic relics involve the aspects of politics, economy, culture and religion from the Warring States Period to the Tang Dynasty and are treasures of China’s ancient historic relics. 80% of historic relics from the Han to Tang Dynasties collected at Xinjiang History Museum take their source at Turpan. Turpan has been the famous home of singing and dancing since ancient times. Gaochang Music was one of the Ten Works of Music of the Tang Dynasty. Modern singing and dancing art of Turpan is more famous for its unique elegant demeanour. Once in Turpan, you will notice people, men, women, old and young, are capable to rise and dance in a happy mood accompanied by songs and tambourine with very strong feeling of music under grape trellises or in courtyards. Turpan has transport facilities. Lanzhou-Xinjiang Railway has a Turpan Station.Over 200kms long high-grade highway connects Turpan and Urumqi. It takes abut 2hours to get to Urumqi from Turpan by bus. Turpan, a museum of history, culture and nature of Western Regions Turpan, a romantic place along the Silk Road.