Taklamakan Desert to regard the Taklamakan Desert as separate and independent from the Gobi Desert region to its east. The People's Republic of China has constructed two cross-desert highways. The Tarim Desert Highway links the cities of Hotan (on the southern edge) and Luntai (on the northern edge), and the Bayingol to Ruoqiang road crosses the desert to the east. In recent years, the desert has expanded in some areas, its sands enveloping farms and villages as a result of desertification. The Golmud-Korla Railway (presently, under construction; expected completion time, 2019) will cross the Taklamakan as well. Because it lies in the
Coal mining in the Black Country Coal mining in the Black Country Coal mining played an important part in the history of the Black Country, an area of the United Kingdom. It was the basis for the area's industrial development. Without coal there was no power for its industries. In the nineteenth century commentators spoke of this region as a great coalfield, and of the "earth turned inside out" by all the mining activity. However, the mines were not the large scale operations that we know of today. They were small rough and ready pits similar to the Racecourse Colliery at Black Country Living Museum. There