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
Kumtag Desert Kumtag Desert is a section of the Taklamakan Desert which lies east-southeast of the Desert of Lop. It is on the other side of the Kara-koshun and reaches north-eastwards as far as the vicinity of the town of Sa-chow and the lake of Kara-nor, or Kala-chi. It is bordered by Dunhuang in the east, Tian Shan in the north, and with an area of 22,800+ square kilometers. Its southern rim is marked by a labyrinth of hills, dotted in groups and irregular clusters,worn down as it were to mere fragments of their former skeletal structure. Between these and the Altyn-Tagh,