Gurbantünggüt Desert (Chinese: 古尔班通古特沙漠; pinyin: Gǔ'ěrbāntōnggǔtè Shāmò) that occupies a large part of the Dzungarian Basin in northern Xinjiang, in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is approximately 50,000 square kilometers (19,000 mi²), and located around 300 to 600 meters above sea level. It is China's (and Xinjiang's) second largest desert, after Taklamakan Desert, which is located in the Tarim Basin.
A remote, arid, and rugged area, Gurbantünggüt Desert is separated by the Tian Shan mountains from the Ili River Basin, Turfan Depression, and the Tarim Basin of the southern Xinjiang. A chain of cities, the largest of which is Ürümqi, are located within a populated strip (the route of the Lanxin Railway) south of the desert, which is irrigated by glacier-fed streams flowing from the Tian Shan.
China National Highway 216 crosses the desert in the north-south direction, from Altay City to Ürümqi.
The climate of the area is temperate, but very continental. The desert's eco-environment is very fragile, and the impact of human activities on the eco-environment, including the building of a trans-desert highway, has been increasingly significant.[1]
It is in this desert that the remotest point of land from any sea is located. The precise point is at . It was pin-pointed and reached on 27 June 1986 by British explorers Nicholas Crane and Dr Richard Crane; the location, for whatever reason (possibly, a Mongolian name) was described as the Dzoosotoyn Elisen Desert. This position is over 2,600 kilometers (1,600 mi) from the nearest coastline.[2]
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