Urumqi

Capital of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The most westerly major Chinese city, with Uyghur and Han culture, the Heavenly Lake, and the gateway to Kashgar and the Pamirs.

Urumqi is the capital of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the largest city in far-western China, geographically the furthest from any ocean of any major city on earth. Its name means 'fine pastureland' in Mongolian, and the surrounding Dzungarian Basin was historically used by Mongol and Kazakh nomads before the Qing dynasty settled it with Han and Hui migrants in the eighteenth century. Today the city has a mixed population of Han, Uyghur, Hui, Kazakh, and other Central Asian Turkic and Mongolian communities.

The Xinjiang Regional Museum holds the collections that make Urumqi an important stop for anyone interested in Silk Road history: most significantly, a series of naturally mummified human bodies from Xinjiang desert burial sites dating from 2,000 to 4,000 years ago. The Loulan Beauty and the Cherchen Man are among the most-discussed: blond, red-haired, and with facial features suggesting origins in the Pontic steppe or Central Asia, they are evidence of the complex population movements along the Silk Road long before the common era. The museum's ethnographic collections are also extensive.

The Grand Bazaar (Erdaoqiao International Bazaar) is a large purpose-built commercial complex that gives a somewhat sanitised version of Uyghur market culture: handicrafts, dried fruit, spices, jade, and Uyghur musical instruments across several floors. The traditional small bazaar streets of the old Uyghur quarters to the south have more character.

Heavenly Lake (Tianchi), two hours east by bus, is a glacial lake at 1,900 metres beneath Mount Bogeda (5,445 metres). The lake is ringed by spruce forest and backed by snow-capped peaks — a landscape that resembles nothing else in Xinjiang's desert and steppe terrain. Kazakh yurt camps operate around the lake in summer.

Travel within Xinjiang has been subject to additional security measures since 2017, with frequent identity document checks, phone inspections at some checkpoints, and registration requirements at hotels. Tourism continues to function, and most visitors report that the process, while intrusive by the standards of other Chinese provinces, is manageable if documents are in order. The food in Urumqi — Uyghur lagman (hand-pulled noodles with mutton sauce), polo (mutton rice pilaf), nan bread, and lamb skewers — is one of the more distinctive regional cuisines in China and worth exploring.