Guma Town ' onMouseout='HidePop("8433")' href="/topics/Pinyin">Pinyin

Pinyin

Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

: Gùmǎ Zhèn, Uyghur

Uyghur language

Uyghur , formerly known as Eastern Turk, is a Turkic language with 8 to 11 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other...

: گۇما بازىرى), also known as Pishan Town (Chinese

Chinese character

Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...

: 皮山镇; pinyin

Pinyin

Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

: Píshān) (written 皮亢 Pikang in the Weilüe

Weilüe

The Weilüe written by Yu Huan between CE 239, the end of Emperor Ming’s reign, and 265 CE, the end of the Cao Wei . Although not an "official historian," Yu Huan has always been held in high regard amongst Chinese scholars....

) is an ancient oasis

Oasis

In geography, an oasis or cienega is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source...

 town on the main caravan route between Khotan

Khotan

Hotan , or Hetian , also spelled Khotan, is the seat of the Hotan Prefecture in Xinjiang, China. It was previously known in Chinese as 于窴/於窴 and to 19th-century European explorers as Ilchi....

 and Karghalik and, in Han times, the route left from here to go to Arachosia (Kandahar

Kandahar

Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...

) through Hunza

Hunza

Hunza may refer to*Hunza Valley*Former State of Hunza*Hunza River*Hunza Peak*Hunza people*Hunza is the Muisca name of the city of Tunja, Colombia...

. It is located in the Taklamakan Desert, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, about 158 km southeast of Kashgar

Kashgar

Kashgar or Kashi is an oasis city with approximately 350,000 residents in the western part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture which has an area of 162,000 km² and a population of approximately...

 in modern Xinjiang

Xinjiang

Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...

, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

.

The Hanshu (which describes events up to 23 CE) mentions that it had 500 households, 3,500 individuals and 500 persons able to bear arms. It was an important hub for caravans heading south to India over the Karakorum

Karakorum

Karakorum was the capital of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century, and of the Northern Yuan in the 14-15th century. Its ruins lie in the northwestern corner of the Övörkhangai Province of Mongolia, near today's town of Kharkhorin, and adjacent to the Erdene Zuu monastery...

 route, or through the Pamirs to Jalalabad

Jalalabad

Jalalabad , formerly called Adinapour, as documented by the 7th century Hsüan-tsang, is a city in eastern Afghanistan. Located at the junction of the Kabul River and Kunar River near the Laghman valley, Jalalabad is the capital of Nangarhar province. It is linked by approximately of highway with...

 or Badakhshan

Badakhshan

Badakhshan is an historic region comprising parts of what is now northeastern Afghanistan and southeastern Tajikistan. The name is retained in Badakhshan Province which is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, in the far northeast of Afghanistan, and contains the Wakhan Corridor...

.

Today, Pishan is a small, rather poor town of about 2,000 people. The main crop is cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

. Most of the inhabitants are Uyghur

Uyghur people

The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...

 and there are some Tajiks.

Transportation

Pishan is served by China National Highway 315

China National Highway 315

China National Highway 315 is a highway in China that runs west from Xining, Qinghai towards Kashi, Xinjiang. It is 3063 kilometres in length.- Route and distance:...

 and the Kashgar-Hotan Railway

Kashgar-Hotan Railway

The Kashgar-Hotan Railway or Kahe Railway is a single-track, non-electrified, railway in Xinjiang, China between Kashgar and Hotan...

.

External links

• Satellite picture of Pishan
• Silk Road Seattle (The Silk Road Seattle website contains many useful resources including a number of full-text historical works)