page_title: Yarkant County
section_title: Later history
hierarchical_section_title: Yarkant County / History / Later history
caption_attribution_description: English: Approach to Yarkand, and the gallows. Picture drawn in 1868 by Robert B. Shaw
context_page_description: Yarkant County, also Shache County, also transliterated from Uyghur as Yakan County, is a county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, located on the southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin. It is one of 11 counties administered under Kashgar Prefecture. The county, usually referred to as Yarkand in English, was the seat of an ancient Buddhist kingdom on the southern branch of the Silk Road and the Yarkand Khanate. The county sits at an altitude of 1,189 metres and as of 2003 had a population of 373,492.
  The fertile oasis is fed by the Yarkand River which flows north down from the Karakorum mountains and passes through Kunlun Mountains known historically as Congling mountains. The oasis now covers 3,210 square kilometres, but was likely far more extensive before a period of desiccation affected the region from the 3rd century CE onwards.
  Today, Yarkant is a predominantly Uyghur settlement. The irrigated oasis farmland produces cotton, wheat, corn, fruits and walnuts. Yak and sheep graze in the highlands. Mineral deposits include petroleum, natural gas, gold, copper, lead, bauxite, granite and coal.
context_section_description: There is very little information on Yarkant's history for many centuries, apart from a couple of brief references in Tang dynasty (618-907) histories and it appears to have been of less note then than the oasis of Kharghalik (see Yecheng and Yecheng County) to its south.
  It was possibly captured by the Muslims soon after they subdued Kashgar in the early 10/11th century.
  The area became the main base in the region for Chagatai Khan (died 1241), who inherited Kashgaria (and also much of the land between the Oxus (Amu Darya) and Jaxartes (Syr Darya) rivers) after his father, Genghis Khan, died in 1227.
  Marco Polo described Yarkant in 1273, but said only that this "province" (of Kublai Khan's nephew, Kaidu, d. 1301) was, "five days' journey in extent. The inhabitants follow the law of Mahomet, and there are also some Nestorian Christians. They are subject to the Great Khan's nephew.  It is amply stocked with the means of life, especially cotton."
  At the end of the 16th century Yarkant was incorporated into the Khanate of Kashgar and became its capital. The Jesuit Benedict Göez, who sought a route from the Mughal Empire to Cathay (which, according to his superiors, may or may not have been the same place as China), arrived in Yarkant with a caravan from Kabul in late 1603. He remained there for about a year, making a short trip to Khotan during that time. He reported:
  "Hiarchan [Yarkant], the capital of the kingdom of Cascar, is a mart of much note, both for the great concourse of merchants, and for the variety of wares. At this capital the caravan of Kabul merchants reaches its terminus; and a new one is formed for the journey to Cathay. The command of this caravan is sold by the king, who invests the chiefs with a kind of royal authority over the merchants for the whole journey. A twelvemonth passed away however before the new company was formed, for the way is long and perilous, and the caravan is not formed every year, but only when a large number arrange to join it, and when it is known that they will be allowed to enter Cathay."
  During his journey, Göez also noted the presence of large marble quarries in the area, leading him to write that amongst native travellers from Yarkant to Cathay:
  "no article of traffic is more valuable or more generally adopted as an investment for this journey than lumps of a certain transparent kind of marble called by the Chinese "jusce" (jade). They carry these to the Emperor of Cathay, attracted by the high prices which he deems it obligatory on his dignity to give ; and such pieces as the Emperor does not fancy they are free to dispose of to private individuals."
caption: Yarkand, 1868, showing city walls and gallows
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