Tarim Basin in the context of "Indo-European language"

The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization first emerged in the Yellow River valley, which along with the Yangtze basin constitutes the geographic core of the Chinese cultural sphere. China maintains a rich diversity of ethnic and linguistic people groups. The traditional lens for viewing Chinese history is the dynastic cycle: imperial dynasties rise and fall, and are ascribed certain achievements. This lens also tends to assume Chinese civilization can be traced as an unbroken thread many thousands of years into the past, making it one of the cradles of civilization. At various times, states representative of a dominant Chinese culture have directly controlled areas stretching as far west as the Tian Shan, the Tarim Basin, and the Himalayas, as far north as the Sayan Mountains, and as far south as the delta of the Red River.

The Neolithic period saw increasingly complex polities begin to emerge along the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. The Erlitou culture in the central plains of China is sometimes identified with the Xia dynasty (3rd millennium BC) of traditional Chinese historiography. The earliest surviving written Chinese dates to roughly 1250 BC, consisting of divinations inscribed on oracle bones. Chinese bronze inscriptions, ritual texts dedicated to ancestors, form another large corpus of early Chinese writing. The earliest strata of received literature in Chinese include poetry, divination, and records of official speeches. China is believed to be one of a very few loci of independent invention of writing, and the earliest surviving records display an already-mature written language. The culture remembered by the earliest extant literature is that of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1046 – 256 BC), China's Axial Age, during which the Mandate of Heaven was introduced, and foundations laid for philosophies such as Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, and Wuxing.

Greater Iran or Greater Persia (Persian: ایران بزرگ Irān-e Bozorg), also called the Iranosphere or the Persosphere or Iranzamin (Persian: ایران‌زمین Irān-zamin), is a term used to refer to a broader cultural sphere that has been influenced, at least to some degree, by Iranian peoples and Iranian languages, and primarily includes the Iranian plateau, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and historically stretched as far east as the Tarim Basin.

The regions which make up Greater Iran are defined by having long been under the rule of various Iranian empires and dynasties, during which the local populace gradually absorbed Iranian influence and assimilated it into their cultural and linguistic traditions; or those where a considerable Iranian population settled and retained their culture, such as in the areas surrounding the Iranian plateau. It is referred to as the "Iranian Cultural Continent" by Encyclopædia Iranica.

An endorheic basin (/ˌɛndoʊˈriː.ɪk/ EN-doh-REE-ik; also endoreic basin and endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water (such as rivers and oceans). Instead, the water drainage flows into permanent and seasonal lakes and swamps that equilibrate through evaporation. Endorheic basins are also called closed basins, terminal basins, and internal drainage systems.

Endorheic regions contrast with open lakes (exorheic regions), where surface waters eventually drain into the ocean. In general, water basins with subsurface outflows that lead to the ocean are not considered endorheic; but cryptorheic. Endorheic basins constitute local base levels, defining a limit of the erosion and deposition processes of nearby areas. Endorheic water bodies include the Caspian Sea, which is the world's largest inland body of water.

The composite Turko-Persian, Turco-Persian, or Turco-Iranian (Persian: فرهنگ ایرانی-ترکی) is the distinctive culture that arose in the 9th and 10th centuries AD in Khorasan and Transoxiana (present-day Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and minor parts of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan). According to the modern historian Robert L. Canfield, the Turco-Persian tradition was Persianate in that it was centered on a lettered tradition of Iranian origin; it was Turkic in so far as it was for many generations patronized by Turkic rulers; and it was "Islamicate" in that Islamic notions of virtue, permanence, and excellence infused discourse about public issues as well as the religious affairs of the Muslims, who were the presiding elite."

In subsequent centuries, the Turco-Persian culture was carried on further by conquering peoples to neighbouring regions, eventually becoming the predominant culture of the ruling and elite classes of South Asia (where it evolved into Indo-Persian tradition), Central Asia and the Tarim Basin, as well as large parts of West Asia.

Kashgar (Uyghur: قەشقەر, romanized: Qeshqer) or Kashi (Chinese: 喀什; pinyin: Kāshí) is a city in the Tarim Basin region of southern Xinjiang, China. It is one of the westernmost cities of China, located near the country's border with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. For over 2,000 years, Kashgar has been a strategically important oasis on the Silk Road linking China with Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and has a population of 711,300 people (as of 2019). Kashgar's urban area covers 15 km (5.8 sq mi), although its administrative area extends over 555 km (214 sq mi).

At the convergence point of widely varying cultures and empires, Kashgar has been under the rule of the Chinese, Turkic, Mongol and Tibetan empires. The city has also been the site of a number of battles between various groups of people on the steppes.

Tibet (/tɪˈbɛt/ ), Xizang or Hsi-tsang is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau. It is the homeland of the Tibetans. Other ethnic groups also reside on the plateau, including Mongols, the Monpa, the Tamang, the Qiang, the Sherpa, the Lhoba, and since the 20th century, the Han and the Hui. Tibet is the highest region on Earth, with an average elevation of 4,380 m (14,000 ft). Lying within the Himalayas, the highest point in Tibet is Mount Everest – the highest peak on Earth, standing 8,848 m (29,000 ft) above sea level.

The Tibetan Empire emerged in the 7th century. At its height in the 9th century, the Tibetan Empire extended far beyond the Tibetan Plateau, from the Tarim Basin and Pamirs in the west, to Yunnan and Bengal in the southeast. It then collapsed and divided into a variety of territories in the 9th century after the battle of U-Yor (Chinese:伍约之战 Tibetan:དབུ་གྱོར་བཁྲུག་པ་བྱས). Lhasa was central part of Wu Ru (Chinese:伍如 Tibetan: དབུ་རུ), the battle of U-Yor lasted for 12 years in Wu Ru and also marked the end of Wu Ru.