The Tarim Desert Highway (Mandarin Chinese: 塔里木沙漠公路), also known as the Cross-Desert Highway (CDH), crosses the Taklamakan desert from north to south. The highway

Highway

A highway is any public road. In American English, the term is common and almost always designates major roads. In British English, the term designates any road open to the public. Any interconnected set of highways can be variously referred to as a "highway system", a "highway network", or a...

 links the cities of Luntai and Minfeng on the northern and southern edges of the Tarim basin

Tarim Basin

The Tarim Basin is a large endorheic basin occupying an area of about . It is located in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China's far west. Its northern boundary is the Tian Shan mountain range and its southern is the Kunlun Mountains on the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. The...

. The total length of the highway is 552km; approximately 446km of the highway cross uninhabited areas covered by shifting sand dunes, making it the longest such highway in the world.

The highway links China National Highway 314 and China National Highway 315.

History

Construction on the highway began in 1993 because of expansion in the petroleum

Petroleum

Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...

 industry, requiring fast shipping across the Taklamakan desert. Construction was completed in 1995.

Maintenance

To prevent the shifting sands from covering the highway, bushes and other vegetation were planted next to the highway to anchor the sand with their roots. A massive irrigation

Irrigation

Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...

 system was constructed to pump water for the vegetation along the highway.

Services

At the halfway point along the desert highway, there are a few restaurants and a gas station. Except for pump house maintenance workers, the region is otherwise entirely uninhabited.