The key oasis towns, watered by rainfall from the mountains, were Kashgar, Marin, Niya, Yarkand, and Khotan (Hetian) to the south, Kuqa and Turpan in the north, and Loulan and Dunhuang in the east.
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North of this strip of irrigated agriculture and settlement is the Taklamakan Desert, south, the Altyn-Tagh and Kunlun Mountains.
The Zhang Zhung culture was centered around sacred Mount Kailash and extended west to Sarmatians and present-day Ladakh & Baltistan, southwest to Jalandhar, south to the Kingdom of Mustang in Nepal, east to include central Tibet, and north across the vast Chang Tang plateau and the Taklamakan Desert to Shanshan.
From the south to the north, the lands of the county run from the main range of the Kunlun Mountains (which forms the border with the Tibet Autonomous Region) to the middle of the Taklamakan Desert.