Kashgar (Uyghur: قەشقەر Qeshqer or كاشغەر Kashgher) or Kashi (Chinese: 喀什) 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^[update]). Kashgar's urban area covers 15 km² (5.8 sq mi), although its administrative area extends over 555 km² (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.

Now administered as a county-level city, Kashgar is the administrative centre of Kashgar Prefecture, which has an area of 162,000 km² (63,000 sq mi) and a population of approximately 4 million as of 2010^[update]. Kashgar was declared a Special Economic Zone in 2010; it is the only city in western China with this designation. Kashgar also forms a terminus of the Karakoram Highway, the reconstruction of which is considered a major part of the multibillion-dollar China–Pakistan Economic Corridor.

The earliest recorded names of the city are Shufu (疏附) and Shule (疏勒). Shufu originally referred to Kashgar's old city inhabited by the Uyghurs, while Shule referred to the new city built by Han Chinese settlers, located 6 miles (9.7 km) from the old one. Shule may have been an attempt by the Chinese to transcribe the Sanskrit name for Kashgar, Śrīkrīrāti (lit. 'fortunate hospitality').

The origin of the name Kashgar is not known for certain and is the subject of academic debate. The Roman geographer Ptolemy (90–168), in his work Geography, refers to the city as Kasi. The Buddhist scholar Xuanzang meanwhile recorded the name Kasha after passing through the city in 644. The name Kashgar did not appear in Chinese records (as 喀什噶爾; Kàshígé'ěr) until the Song dynasty (960–1279), but it was likely to have been used orally long before then. British archaeologist Aurel Stein (1862–1943) argued that the name Kashgar came into use in 716, sometime after the raids on the city by Qutayba ibn Muslim, the then Arab governor of Khurasan. However, Stein's contemporary, the Scottish historian H. A. R. Gibb (1895–1971), argued that Qutayba never made it as far as Kashgar, and Stein was likely conflating Kashgar with another city.

The English name Kashgar is derived from the Russian name (Кашгар), which itself is derived from the Persian name Kâšğar (کاشغر). H. W. Bailey (1899–1996), an English scholar who specialised in the Iranian languages, proposed that Kâš may have been the indigenous name of the city, with the Eastern Iranian suffix -ğar (lit. 'mountain') being attached later on. Archaic English spellings of Kashgar include Cascar and Cashgar. The modern Chinese name Kashi (喀什) is a shortened form of the longer and less-frequently used Kashiga'er (喀什噶尔). The Chinese government's official spelling for Kashgar in the Uyghur language is Qeshqer (قەشقەر). The historical spelling Kashgher (كاشغەر) is still used by some Uyghurs today.^{[citation needed]}

Kashgar is located at the convergence point of widely varying cultures and empires, it has been under the rule of the historically 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.

The earliest mention of Kashgar occurs when a Chinese Han dynasty envoy travelled the Northern Silk Road to explore lands to the west.