Tashkurgan

Tashkurgan, historically known as Sarikol and Shitoucheng, is a town in the far west of China, close to the country's border with Tajikistan. It is seat of Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County, in the autonomous region of Xinjiang. Tajiks – ethnic Pamiris who live in the Pamir Mountains of Xinjiang – make up a little over half of Tashkurgan's population.

Tashkurgan was a significant stop on the Silk Road, with roads leading to major centers of trade such as Kashgar. It also served as the capital of a number of ancient and pre-modern kingdoms.

The town is named after a stone fortress to its north; Tashkurgan accordingly means "stone fortress" in the Turkic languages. The official English spelling (per the Chinese government) of the name is Taxkorgan, while Tashkorgan appears occasionally in literature. The historical Chinese name for the town was Shitoucheng (石頭城), which literally means "stone city" in the context of a fortified city. The town was also historically known as Sarikol (Chagatay: ساریق قول, romanized: sarïq-qol, or ساریقول, sarïqol), after the Sarikol Range. The modern Uyghur name of the town is Tashqorghan (تاشقورغان).

Tashkurgan has a long history as a stop on the Silk Road. Major caravan routes converged here leading to Kashgar in the north, Kargilik to the east, Badakhshan and Wakhan to the west, and Chitral and Hunza to the southwest (present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan).

About 2,000 years ago, during the Han dynasty, Tashkurgan was the main centre of the Kingdom of Puli (蒲犁) mentioned in the Book of Han and the Book of the Later Han. Later it became known as Varshadeh. Mentions in the Weilüe of the Kingdom of Manli (滿犁) probably also refer to Tashkurgan.

Some scholars believe that Tashkurgan is the "Stone Tower" mentioned by Ptolemy in his famous treatise Geography, which is said to have marked the midway point between Europe and China on the old Silk Road. Other scholars, however, disagree with this identification, though it remains one of the four most probable sites for the Stone Tower.

Centuries later Tashkurgan became the capital of the Sarikol Kingdom located in the Pamir Mountains, and later of Qiepantuo (謁盤陀) under the Persian Empire. At the northeast corner of the town is a huge fortress known as the Tashkurgan Fort dating from the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368 CE) and the subject of many colourful local legends. A ruined fire temple is near the fortress.

The Buddhist monk Xuanzang passed through Tashkurgan around 649 CE, on his way to Khotan from Badakhshan, as did Song Yun around 500 CE. When British archaeologist Aurel Stein passed through the town in the early twentieth century he was pleased to find that Tashkurgan matched the descriptions left by those travellers: discussing Qiepantuo, Xuanzang recorded (in Samuel Beal's translation): "This country is about 200 li in circuit; the capital rests on a great rocky crag of the mountain, and is backed by the river Śitâ. It is about 20 li in circuit." Xuanzang's discussion of Qiepantuo in book twelve of Great Tang Records on the Western Regions recounts a tale which might explain the name of Princess Castle, a tourist attraction near Tashkurgan: A Han Chinese princess on her way to marry a Persian king is placed on a high rock for safety during local unrest. She becomes pregnant from a mysterious stranger, ultimately giving birth to a powerful king and founding the royal line ruling at the time of Xuanzang's visit. Stein records a version of this, current at the time of his visit, in which the princess is the daughter of the Persian king Naushīrvān. The Princess Castle is believed to be located 70 kilometres (43 mi) south of the town near Chalachigu Valley.