where the terminal lake was found in 1867 is located to the south-west of Lop Nor, and the lake had shifted back to Lop Nor by the time this map was drawn.
Taitema Lake was a smaller transit lake and located to the west of Kara-Koshun. From around 1800 BC until the 9th century the lake supported a thriving
Tocharian culture.
Archaeologists have discovered the buried remains of settlements, as well as several of the
Tarim mummies, along its ancient shoreline. Former water resources of the Tarim River and Lop Nur nurtured the kingdom of
Loulan since the second century BC, an ancient civilisation along the
Silk Road, which skirted the lake-filled basin. Loulan became a client state of the Chinese empire in 55 BC, renamed
Shanshan.
Faxian went by the
Lop Desert on his way to the
Indus valley (395–414), followed by later Chinese pilgrims.
Marco Polo in his travels passed through the
Lop Desert. In the 19th century and early 20th century, the explorers
Ferdinand von Richthofen,
Nikolai Przhevalsky,
Sven Hedin and
Aurel Stein visited and studied the area. It is also likely that Swedish soldier
Johan Gustaf Renat had visited the area when he was helping the
Zunghars to produce maps over the area in the eighteenth century. The lake was given various names in ancient Chinese texts. In
Shiji it was called Yan Ze (鹽澤, literally Salt Marsh), indicating its
saline nature, near which was located the ancient
Loulan Kingdom. In
Hanshu it was called Puchang Hai (蒲昌海, literally Sea of Abundant Reed) and was given a dimension of 300 to 400
li (roughly 120–160 km) in length and breadth, indicating it was once a lake of great size. These early texts also mentioned the belief, mistaken as it turns out, that the lake joins the
Yellow River at
Jishi through an underground channel as the source of the river. The lake was referred to as the "Wandering Lake" in the early 20th century due to the Tarim River changing its course, causing its terminal lake to alter its location between the Lop Nur dried basin, the
Kara-Koshun dried basin and the Taitema Lake basin. This shift of the terminal lake caused some confusion amongst the early explorers as to the exact location of Lop Nur. Imperial maps from the
Qing dynasty showed Lop Nur to be located in similar position to the present Lop Nur dried basin, but the Russian geographer
Nikolay Przhevalsky instead found the terminal lake at Kara-Koshun in 1867.
Sven Hedin visited the area in 1900–1901 and suggested that the Tarim river periodically changed its course to and from between its southbound and northbound direction, resulting in a shift in the position of the terminal lake. The change in the course of the river, which resulted in Lop Nur drying up, was also suggested by Hedin as the reason why ancient settlements such as Loulan had perished. In 1921, due to human intervention, the terminal lake shifted its position back to Lop Nur. The lake measured 2400 km2 in area in 1930–1931. In 1934, Sven Hedin went down the new Kuruk Darya ("Dry River") in a canoe. He found the delta to be a maze of channels and the new lake so shallow that it was difficult to navigate even in a canoe. He had previously walked the dry Kuruk Darya in a caravan in 1900. In 1952 the terminal lake then shifted to Taitema Lake when the Tarim River and Konque River were separated through human intervention, and Lop Nur dried out again by 1964. In 1972, the
Daxihaizi Reservoir was built at Tikanlik, water supply to the lake was cut off, and all the lakes for the most part then dried out, with only small seasonal lakes forming in local depressions in Taitema. The Taitema Lake however had shifted westwards during the past 40 years due in part to the spread of the desert. == Nuclear weapons test base ==