KHOTEN, Iltsa, Ilchi, or Ili, lies to the south- ' east of Yarkand, in lat. 37° 15' N., and long. 79° 25' E., and is situated between, or rather above, the junction of the Khoten and Karakash rivers. It is surrounded by a low wall, and has 18,000 houses; with eight serais for the use of foreign merchants and traders from Ilchi, Karakash, and ' Yurunkash. Khoten is nearer than Yarkand is to Kashmir, but the routes from and to the latter place are more generally adopted by traders. From Yarkand to Leh in Ladakh the distance is reckoned at very nearly 500 miles, while from Khoten to Leh it is about 350, and from Leh to Sultanpur in Kulu it is close on 250 miles more.
Khoten district has a population of 129,500 souls. It is at the northern base of the Konen Lun mountains, and includes the deep valleys which drain its slopes into the river on which Ilchi or Iltsa, the capital, with its 6000 houses, stands. The district is famous for its musk, silk, gold, and jade.
Khoten may be considered the most central and inaccessible state of all Asia, but it was a seat of very ancient civilisation, and was already in friendly relations with China in B.C. 140. In the 4th century of our era, Buddhism was in high development here. Though much of the surface appears to be rugged mountain, it is interspersed with level tracts, which are both fruitful and populous. At one time, like the other states of Eastern Turkestan, it was under a Muhammadan chief of Turkish or Mongol descent. --Bunsen; Yule's Cathay, ii. p. 567 ; Moorcroft's Travels, i. p. 367 ; Klaproth, T. Asiatique, No. xvii. ; Histoire de la Ville de Khoten, Reniusat; Quarterly Oriental Magazine, Calcutta, Sept. 1834 ; Russians in Central Asia ; Capt. Valikhanof and M. Vemukof, p. 158; P. Arminius Vambery's Bokhara, p. 9.