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
God's Own Country God's Own Country God’s Own Country, is a phrase meaning an area, region or country supposedly favoured by God, that was first used to describe the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland, and has subsequently been used to refer to various places, including Australia, Canada, England (Cornwall, Surrey, Yorkshire, Northumberland), United States, New Zealand, Indian state of Kerala, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The expression was first used to describe the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland by the Georgian British writer Edward du Bois, writing under the pseudonym "A Knight Errant" in 1807. When used in reference to England, "God's own country" refers