Jiaohe Ruins

2,200-year-old city carved from the soft clay of a river island

Jiaohe occupies a teardrop-shaped clay plateau between two branches of the Yarnaiz River, 10 km west of Turpan. The city was the capital of the Cheshi kingdom from around the 2nd century BC, and reached its peak as a Tang dynasty garrison in the 7th–8th centuries. Almost everything that survives — temples, monasteries, a 5-metre-deep central avenue, a Buddhist stupa — was hewn rather than built, by digging down from the original surface.

The site is a UNESCO World Heritage component of the Silk Road network. A clear wooden boardwalk trail guides visitors through the main districts; allow 90 minutes for a full circuit. The ruins are spectacular at sunset, when the cliffs and the carved walls glow orange in the long desert light.

things to do sight story
A story
Jiaohe is one of the oldest, largest and best-preserved earthen cities in the world. Rather than build walls and dig moats, the founders chose a 30-metre-high island of compacted clay between two river branches — and then quarried streets, temples and houses downward from the surface, leaving the walls in place. The natural cliffs handled the defence. Mongol cavalry finally took it in the 13th century.