Kumtag Desert Kumtag Desert The Kumtag Desert (, "kum-tag" meaning "sand-mountain" in a number of Turkic languages), is an arid landform in northwestern China, which was proclaimed as a national park in the year 2002. The oval Tarim Basin with its central Taklamakan Desert is bounded on the north, west and south by mountains. On the east side the Kumtag is an unbroken plain about 100 miles from north to south that runs from the Taklamakan to Gansu and Mongolia. Many modern maps do not show a Kumtag in this sense which implies that the usage may be out of date. The
Taklamakan Desert by Turkic peoples. Starting with the Han Dynasty, the Chinese sporadically extended their control to the oasis cities of the Taklamakan Desert in order to control the important silk route trade across Central Asia. Periods of Chinese rule were interspersed with rule by Turkic, Mongol and Tibetan peoples. The present population consists largely of Turkic Uyghur people and ethnic Han people. This desert was explored by several scientists such as Xuanzang, a monk in the 7th century and by the archaeologist Aurel Stein in the 20th century. Atmospheric studies have shown that dust originating from the Taklamakan is blown over