Emin Minaret

37-metre brick minaret from 1777, China's tallest Islamic tower

The 37-metre brick minaret on the eastern edge of Turpan is China's tallest, and one of the most distinctive Islamic structures in the country. The neighbouring mosque, built simultaneously, can hold around a thousand worshippers under a flat poplar-beam roof — a typically Central Asian construction adapted to the punishing desert climate.

Visitors are not usually allowed to climb the minaret but can enter the mosque outside prayer times. The grounds also include a small museum and a viewing platform looking across the Turpan oasis to the Flaming Mountains. Aim for early morning or late afternoon to avoid the worst of the heat and to see the brickwork at its most photogenic.

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Construction of the Emin Minaret began in 1777, paid for by the local Uyghur ruler Süleyman in honour of his late father Emin Khoja, who had led Turpan's allegiance to the Qing. The tapering 37-metre brick tower is decorated entirely in raised geometric patterns laid in differently oriented bricks — no glaze, no tile, just shadows shifting across the desert light through the day.