Ahe Desert Highway

The Hotan–Aral Desert Highway, part of National Highway G580, runs roughly 420 km north–south across the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, linking the oasis city of Hotan on the southern Silk Road with Aral and Aksu in the north. Opened in 2007, it was the second highway built across the Taklamakan and cut hundreds of kilometres off the old detour around the desert's edge. For much of its length the road follows the seasonal Hotan River, where rolling sand dunes give way to stretches of desert poplar forest that turn golden in autumn. It is one of China's great desert drives, with a real sense of remoteness and wide-open space.