Place · region

Lop Nur

Also known as Lop Nor

Lop Nur is a former salt lake, now largely dry, in the eastern Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, China. The ancient oasis kingdom of Kroraina, called Loulan in Chinese, lay on its north-western shore, on the Silk Road between China and the western oases. Changes in the course of the Tarim River shifted and shrank the lake. From 1964 the area was China's nuclear test site.

Lop Nur
Image: NASA. Image courtesy of Earth Sciences and Image Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center. Color adjusting of t... · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 2 profiles

People's Republic of ChinaMilitaryPeople's Republic of ChinaMilitary

Mentioned in 1 state history

Kroraina

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Lop Nur. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/lop-nur
MLA
“Lop Nur.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/lop-nur. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Lop Nur.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/lop-nur.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Lop Nur’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/lop-nur (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻