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County in Xinjiang, China
Photo: John Hill, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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The most famous thing about the city is an archeological find with mummies from the ancient Tocharian civilisation. These are about 4000 years old with Caucasian features. One man is about two meters, a woman near 180cm. The best place to see them, however, in the museum in Ürümqi.
Fourteen 2,600-year-old famous Indo-European Tarim mummies.
A Uyghur architectural gem of a warlord's home containing a display of ancient Zaghunluq grave artifacts and a collection more recent farm and household items.
A large town square.
Two small nearby ancient ruins, including Lalulik.
Collection of thousands of petroglyphs along a riverside cliff face, depict ancient life, with pastoral scenes, spiritual belief, animals, dancing and battles dating to the Bronze Age and Iron Age.
Enormous, verdant grasslands area, to see the endangered Tibetan antelope and a wide range of other wildlife.
Visitors can tour and, afterward, try their luck hunting for jade in the nearby river.
Xinjiang's vast oil reserves in the center of the Taklamakan Desert can be toured by visitors.
Wandering in the Uyghur neighborhood with rural paths, giant grape trellises, colorful courtyard doors, and a sizable mosque.
By car
Many foreign travelers coming through Cherchen are headed for Dunhuang, Xining or Golmud (and onward to Lhasa) through Qinghai Province. A 4WD vehicle is needed for just one leg of this trip.
By bus
You can go by bus, independently, on great roads, for every other leg, and take a 4WD public car. Much of southern Xinjiang was closed to tourists, except with special permission, into the 1990s.
By plane
By bus
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