YARKAND (Chinese name SOCHE FIT), the largest town in one of the two chief oases of the Tarim basin in the dominion of Sinkiang, 38° 25' N. and 77° 16' E., 3,900 ft. above sea-level. The oasis lies along several rivers of the south-west part of the Tarim basin and, as these streams come from the glaciers of high Pamir, they are strong and give a good water supply. The Kash gar oasis lies to the north-west and the Khotan oasis (across a desert belt) to the south-east. In the Yarkand oasis irrigation is highly developed and the soil at the foot of the mountains is largely fertile loess on which wheat, barley, rice, beans, and oil plants are grown, while there are also many fruit orchards. Among the mountains there is good pasture and large herds of camels, yaks, goats, sheep and cattle are kept. Cotton and silk (mulberry) are cultivated to some extent.
Marco Polo visited Yarkand between 1271 and 1275 and Goes went there in 1603. Schlagintweit passed through Yarkand a few days before he was killed at Kashgar in 1857.
The town is surrounded by a great earth wall with towers of Chinese type and has mosques and madrasas (colleges) of great fame though less well known than those of Bukhara and Samar kand. Estimates of the population, all some years old, vary from 50,000 to 100,000, probably according to the extent to which suburbs have been reckoned with the city. There are several smaller towns in the Yarkand oasis : Tashkurgan on the Pamirs, Yangi-hissar, Posgam, Kargalyk, at the bifurcation of ways to Khotan and Ladakh, Sanju, Tagarchi, Kartchum, and Guma. The city is a centre of caravan trade along routes from Cadakh, Khotan, Kansu and Trans-Caspian regions, as well as India and Russia generally. Horses, cotton, skins and leather and leather goods, carpets, silk, etc., are dealt in, and carpets as well as woven stuffs in silk, cotton and wool are made.