Turpan Tours

Travel to Turpan! Top 5 Places to Visit in Xinjiang's Beautiful Silk Road Oasis

The heart of Uyghur culture can be found in Turpan, a city in China's far west region of Xinjiang. Here are the top 5 places to visit! Read more:

Are you traveling to Turpan? Don't forget to grab a copy of the FarWestChina Xinjiang travel guide. Learn more here:

Special thanks to my friend Uyghur Abdurehim for providing a performance of the dutar that was used as the background music for this video.

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This video was filmed using:
- DJI Osmo:
- DJI Phantom 3:
- Canon 70D:
- GoPro Hero3 Silver:

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China/Kasghar/Turpan/(Silkroad 2002) Part 7

Welcome to my travelchannel.On my channel you can find almost 1000 films of more than 70 countries. See the playlist on my youtube channel.Enjoy!


Turpan also known as Turfan or Tulufan, is a prefecture-level city located in the east of Xinjiang, People's Republic of China. It has an area of 69,324 square kilometres (26,766 sq mi) and a population of 570,000 (2003)
In 803, the Uyghurs of the Uyghur Khaganate seized Turfan from the Tibetans. The Uyghur Khaganate however was destroyed by the Kirghiz and its capital Ordu-Baliq in Mongolia sacked in 840. The defeat resulted in the mass movement of the Uyghurs out of Mongolia and their dispersal into Gansu and Central Asia, and many joined other Uyghurs already present in Turfan. In the early twentieth century, a collection of some 900 Christian manuscripts dating to the ninth to the twelfth centuries was found at a monastery site at Turfan.[20]
The Uyghurs established a Kingdom in the Turpan region with its capital in Gaochang or Kara-Khoja. The kingdom was known as the Uyghuria Idikut state or Kara-Khoja Kingdom that lasted from 856 to 1389 AD. The Uyghurs were Manichaean but later converted to Buddhism and funded the construction the cave temples in the Bezeklik Caves. The Uyghurs formed an alliance with the rulers of Dunhuang. The Uyghur state later became a vassal state of the Kara-Khitans, and then as a vassal of the Mongol Empire. This Kingdom was led by the Idikuts, or Saint Spiritual Rulers. The last Idikut left Turpan area in 1284 for Kumul, then Gansu to seek protection of Yuan Dynasty, but local Uyghur Buddhist rulers still held power until the invasion by the Moghul Hizir Khoja in 1389. The conversion of the local Buddhist population to Islam was completed nevertheless only in the second half of the 15th century.
Artifacts of Manichaean and Buddhist provenance are found in Turfan. Uyghur, New Persian, Sogdian and Syriac documents have been found in Turfan.Turfan also has documents with Middle Persian.After being converted to Islam, the descendants of the previously Buddhist Uyghurs in Turfan failed to retain memory of their ancestral legacy and falsely believed that the infidel Kalmuks (Dzungars) were the ones who built Buddhist monuments in their area.
Turpan Uyghurs has more Han Chinese features and looks than Uyghurs elsewhere, and this is suggested to be due to intermarriage between Han Chinese and Uyghur in the past according to the locals. Due to physical features found in Uyghurs in Turpan it was claimed that Uyghurs married slaves sent to Turpan's Lukchun area by the Qing accordging to the Manchu Ji Dachun.
Turpan is an agricultural economy growing vegetables, cotton, and especially grapes being China's largest raisin producing area. There is a steady increase in farming acreage devoted to grapes backed by strong local government support for increased production.The local government has coordinated improvements in raisin distribution, offered preferential loans for grape cultivation, and free management training to growers.Wikipedia