Each answer names its source. Where sources disagree, the answer says so instead of choosing one.
How big is the Taklamakan Desert?
Xinhua gives its area as 337,600 square kilometres, about 1,000 kilometres from east to west and 400 kilometres from north to south. Moving sand covers 258,400 square kilometres, more than 76 percent of the desert, and local people say dunes there pass 200 metres. The China Meteorological Administration ranks it second in the world among moving deserts.
Source: Xinhua, 30 December 2024; China Meteorological Administration, 3 December 2024, accessed 15 October 2026
How do the big deserts of north-west China compare in area?
Xinhua gives 337,600 square kilometres for the Taklamakan and 49,200 for the Badain Jaran, and China Central Television News gives 48,700 for the Gurbantunggut. UNESCO places the Badain Jaran third by area in China and second among drifting deserts. Area figures depend on how each desert is bounded, so other sources can differ.
Source: Xinhua, 30 December 2024 and 26 September 2024; CCTV News via China News Service, 17 May 2026; UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Badain Jaran Desert (1638), accessed 15 October 2026
Why is the Badain Jaran Desert a World Heritage property?
UNESCO listed it in 2024 under criteria (vii) and (viii). It names a stabilised mega-dune with a relative height of 460 metres, lakes set between the dunes, and singing sands, the resonance made when wind moves dry loose sand. Xinhua counts 144 lakes, and Nuoritu Lake has a water area of about 147 hectares.
Source: UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Badain Jaran Desert, Towers of Sand and Lakes (1638); Xinhua, 26 September 2024, accessed 15 October 2026
What is a yardang?
The Jiuquan municipal government says yardang landforms need two things: a bed of lake sediments, and strong directional wind and flowing water to wear it away. The Dunhuang Yardang National Geopark was approved in November 2001. Xinjiang's culture and tourism department describes the World Ghost City in Karamay as a wind-eroded landform made in dry, windy conditions.
Source: Jiuquan Municipal People's Government, Dunhuang Yardang page; Xinjiang Department of Culture and Tourism, World Ghost City page, accessed 15 October 2026
What is the Gobi?
The Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences defines China's Gobi as gravel and rock desert on the Inner Mongolian Plateau and beyond, with sparse plants and a dry climate. It gives a total area of about 458,000 square kilometres and splits the Gobi into two types, one shaped mainly by erosion and one built up by deposits.
Source: Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, "China's Gobi", accessed 15 October 2026
What keeps Crescent Spring full?
Xinhua reported in 2024 that the spring's water area, stable at about 27.45 mu, had been formed that year by a rising groundwater table, without direct water supplement. The local official quoted said the surrounding environment had kept improving. The dunes around it run about 40 kilometres from east to west.
Source: Xinhua, 15 September 2024; Jiuquan Municipal People's Government, accessed 15 October 2026
How did Shapotou protect the railway from the desert?
The Baotou-Lanzhou railway opened in 1958 and crosses the Tengger Desert six times within about a dozen kilometres at Shapotou. Scientists found that straw checkerboards of 1 metre squares gave the strongest result, and a green corridor more than 500 metres wide now holds the sand back. The railway's sand-control system won a national science and technology prize in 1988, and the Zhongwei sand-control station won a UN Environment Programme Global 500 award in 1994.
Source: National Forestry and Grassland Administration; People's Daily, 6 July 2023, accessed 15 October 2026
Why is the dune at Xiangshawan called singing sand?
People's Daily Overseas wrote in 2017 that sand slides down the dune slopes with croaking and booming sounds. It put each slope at about 110 metres high and 400 metres wide, tilted at about 45 degrees. Xiangshawan lies at the eastern end of the Kubuqi Desert in Dalad Banner, Ordos.
Source: People's Daily Overseas, 11 October 2017; Dalad Banner People's Government, accessed 15 October 2026
How has the Kubuqi Desert changed?
People's Daily reported in 2018 that vegetation cover in the Kubuqi Desert rose from 16.2 percent in 2002 to 53 percent in 2016, and forest cover from 0.8 to 15.7 percent. Reported areas for the desert differ between sources, so no single figure is given here.
Source: People's Daily environment channel, 4 August 2018, accessed 15 October 2026
What is the Tarim Desert Highway?
The Luntai-Minfeng highway, which the Xinjiang forestry administration describes as the initial desert highway of Xinjiang and of China. Construction began in March 1993, and it opened in September 1995. It is 552 kilometres long, 446 kilometres of it through moving sand, and a shelterbelt 436 kilometres long was finished beside it in 2005.
Source: Xinjiang Forestry and Grassland Administration, desert highway feature, November 2024, accessed 15 October 2026
What is the Strange Tree Forest?
A stand of dead Euphrates poplars inside the Ejin poplar forest. Xinhua says the dead trees take varied shapes, some looking as if they cry out to the sky and some coiling. The whole forest covers about 30,000 hectares, and reports from other years give different areas.
Source: Xinhua, 20 October 2023, accessed 15 October 2026
What does Shahu contain?
Shahu in Pingluo County lies at the foot of the Helan Mountains, 42 kilometres from Yinchuan. The Ningxia culture and tourism department gives a total area of 80.10 square kilometres, with more than 20 square kilometres of desert next to more than 40 of water. It has been a national 5A scenic area.
Source: Ningxia Department of Culture and Tourism, Shahu page, accessed 15 October 2026
