Takla Makan

THE Takla Makan Desert, the largest in China, is located in the centre of the Tarim Basin, [in] the Sinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region.... After Liberation, the Academy of Sciences of China, together with organizations concerned, sent teams to survey the Takla Makan Desert.... Occupying an area of 320,000 square kms, one-third of the total of China's deserts, the Takla Makan Desert has dunes in different shapes, crescent, chain-like or domed.

1974, Chia Yu-chiang, “A Survey of the Takla Makan Desert”, in China Pictorial, number 1, page 35

According to a recent escapee from the mainland, no less than 700,000 of the youths forcibly sent to the far northwest in the last seven or eight years—since Peiping started an allout "downward transfer" operation—had died from overwork and exposure to bitter climate or as victims of shifting desert sand. The escapee, a Mr. Hsia who came out early in February, said the figure was based on the reports and other data he had handled while working at the Shanghai Office of Downward Transfer Operation. The deaths, he said, had been recorded in Inner Mongolia and the provinces of Sinkiang, Ninghsia, Kansu and Shensi. He gave no breakdown but noted that the Takla Makan desert of Sinkiang was responsible for the biggest kill.

1975 April 6, L. Chen, “Mao's young enemies are everywhere”, in Free China Weekly, volume XVI, number 13, Taipei, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 3

I did fulfill another dream, however, one that began when I first looked down on the Takla Makan Desert from atop a 17,000-foot mountain in Russian Turkestan. I dreamed of traveling through Central Asia and finding people not yet influenced by our civilization. It may seem strange that someone in love with boats and the sea should love the deserts of Central Asia. The Takla Makan is as far from the sea as you can get. Yet, the sea and the desert are strangely similar. The illimitable expanses of both, stretching away to the horizon on all sides, can inspire exhilarating feelings of freedom, of being master of your own fate. Both the desert and the sea can also be pitiless to the lazy, the unprepared, the unwary traveler who ventures upon them. He may pay with his life for his shortcomings.

1996, Ella Maillart, “Foreward”, in The Alluring Target: In Search of the Secrets of Central Asia, Trackless Sands Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page xiii