Former salt lake in Bayingolin Prefecture, Xinjiang, China
Lop Nur
Satellite picture of the Basin of the former sea of Lop Nur; the concentric shorelines of the vanished lake are visible.
Lop Nur
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Location of Lop Nur within Xinjiang
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Lop Nur
Lop Nur (China)
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Chinese name
Traditional Chinese
羅布泊
Simplified Chinese
罗布泊
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin
Luóbù Pō
Wade–Giles
Lo2-pu4 P'o1
IPA
[lwǒpû pʰwó]
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese
羅布淖爾
Simplified Chinese
罗布淖尔
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin
Luóbù Nào'ěr
Wade–Giles
Lo2-pu4 Nao4-'erh3
IPA
[lwǒpû nâʊàɚ]
Mongolian name
Mongolian Cyrillic
ᠯᠣᠪ ᠨᠠᠭᠤᠷ Лоб Нуур
Uyghur name
Uyghur
لوپنۇر
Transcriptions
Latin Yëziqi
Lopnur
Yengi Yeziⱪ
Lopnur
Siril Yëziqi
Лопнур
Lop Nur or Lop Nor (from a Mongolian name meaning "Lop Lake", where "Lop" is a toponym of unknown origin[1]) is a now largely dried-up salt lake formerly located in the eastern fringe of the Tarim Basin in the southeastern portion of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, northwestern China, between the Taklamakan and Kumtag deserts. Administratively, the lake is in Lop Nur town (Chinese: 罗布泊镇; pinyin: Luóbùpō zhèn), also known as Luozhong (罗中; Luózhōng) of Ruoqiang County, which in its turn is part of the Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture.
The lake system, into which the Tarim River and Shule River drain from the west and east respectively, is the last remnant of the historical post-glacial Tarim Lake, which once covered more than 10,000 km2 (3,900 sq mi) in the Tarim Basin but had progressively shrunk throughout the Holocene due to rain shadowing by the Tibetan Plateau. Lop Nur is hydrologically endorheic, it is landbound and has no outlet, and has relied largely on meltwater runoffs from the Tianshan, Kunlun and the western Qilian Mountains. The lake measured 3,100 km2 (1,200 sq mi) in 1928, but has dried up due to construction of reservoirs which dammed the flow of water feeding into the lake, and only small seasonal lakes and salt marshes may form. The dried-up Lop Nur Basin is covered with a salt crust ranging from 30 to 100 cm (12 to 39 in) in thickness.
An area to the northwest of Lop Nur has been used as a nuclear testing site.[2] Since the discovery of potash at the site in the mid-1990s, it is also the location of a large-scale mining operation.[3] There are some restricted areas under military management and cultural relics protection points in the region, which are not open to the public.[4]
^Barber, Elizabeth (2000). The Mummies of Urümchi. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 125. Two groups have laid claim to nor, the second half of Lop Nor. Nor is Mongol for 'lake' and occurs as part of many lake names in Xinjiang and other parts of Central Asia, while nur is Uyghur for 'bright' (as in the white of the salt flats). Mongol probably wins this one. But lop is opaque in both languages and in Chinese too, a fact suggesting that the name goes back to a time before Turks, Mongols, or Chinese had entered the territory.
^"Lop Nor Nuclear Weapons Test Base". nti. Retrieved 3 August 2007.
^"Lop Nur, Xinjiang, China". Earth Observatory. 19 June 2011. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
^三问哈罗铁路. Sina Weibo. 《新疆哈密广播电视报》. 6 December 2012.
LopNur or Lop Nor (from a Mongolian name meaning "Lop Lake", where "Lop" is a toponym of unknown origin) is a now largely dried-up salt lake formerly...
by the People's Republic of China, detonated on 16 October 1964, at the LopNur test site. It was a uranium-235 implosion fission device made from weapons-grade...
1,030 to 1,040 m (3,380 to 3,410 ft), while the LopNur in the southeast is only 250 m lower. The Lop Desert is on the whole flat, but with three slightly...
edge of the Lop Desert. The term Loulan is the Chinese transcription of the native name Kroraïna and is used to refer to the city near LopNur as well as...
spoken in Lop County, China Lop Desert, a desert in China LopNur, a group of small, now seasonal salt lake sand marshes Lop rabbit, several breeds of rabbits...
the Tian Shan and Kunlun Mountains. The river historically terminated at LopNur, but today reaches no further than Taitema Lake before drying out. It is...
conducted 45 tests (23 atmospheric and 22 underground, all conducted at LopNur Nuclear Weapons Test Base, in Malan, Xinjiang) 596 First test – October...
about 1,000 wild Bactrian camels are living in the wild. Most live on the LopNur Wild Camel National Nature Reserve in China, and a smaller population lives...
Jonathan McDowell, the spacecraft's landing site was an airbase located at LopNur, China. On 7 September 2020, commercial satellite reconnaissance company...
transparency. China tested its first nuclear weapon device ("596") in 1964 at the LopNur test site. The weapon was developed as a deterrent against both the United...
depressions of that area, the other two being Karakoshun Lake (喀拉库顺湖) and LopNur. For about 1,500 years before 1921, the Tarim River poured into Taitema...
Wasteland: the destruction of the Hamoun Oasis". Earth Observatory. NASA. "LopNur". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2021-11-26. Wyatt, Dennis (2021-08-28)...
took place in 1964, and its first hydrogen bomb test occurred in 1966 at LopNur. Tests continued until 1996, when the country signed the Comprehensive...
小河公主) or Little River Princess was found in 2003 at Xiaohe Cemetery in LopNur, Xinjiang. She is one of the Tarim mummies, and is known as M11 for the...
toward Charkilik, and Loulan was abandoned. The Tarim ended at the now-dry LopNur, which occupied a shifting position east of Loulan. Eastward is the fabled...
Taklamakan Desert near the great, but now mostly dry, salt lake known as LopNur. The kingdom was originally an independent city-state, known in local Gandhari...
sources of the Brahmaputra, Indus and Sutlej Rivers. He also mapped lake LopNur, and the remains of cities, grave sites and the Great Wall of China in...
D-21 drone, similar in design to the Blackbird, was built to overfly the LopNur nuclear test facility in China. This drone was launched from the back of...
789 ft) above sea-level). To the south of the Kuruk-tagh lie the desert of LopNur, the Kum-tagh desert, and the valley of the Bulunzir-gol. To this great...
archaeologists working on a film about the Silk Road. The mummy was discovered near LopNur. She was buried 3 feet beneath the ground. The mummy was extremely well...
known as Ördek's Necropolis, is a Bronze Age site located in the west of LopNur, in Xinjiang, Western China. It contains about 330 tombs, about 160 of...
encountered Qinghai Lake, which they called the West Sea, and the lakes LopNur and Bostang in Xinjiang. The Han dynasty expanded beyond the traditional...
Global Information
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
