How to get to Aiding Lake?

Aiding Lake Traffic Guide: If you visit Bazaar in the urban area or go to the suburbs, you can get on a donkey cart called donkey rental by local people, negotiate the price in advance, sit on it and listen to the hoofbeat, and have a quick look at the customs of Turpan. It feels good.

The lake is located in Chatkale Township, 50 kilometers south of Turpan, which means Moonlight Lake in Uygur language. It is an inland saltwater lake with an area of about 22 square kilometers (the lake reached 152 square kilometers in the 1940s) and an altitude of 154 meters, all below 0.8 meters.

Aiding Lake is composed of three parts, with a circumference of about 0.5- 1 km, which is a hard saline-alkali land with more salt content. The middle circle is a salt swamp; The center of the lake is crystal clear white salt crystals. Walking to the water's edge, there were no fish or birds, only swarms of small insects, and occasionally rabbits and mice. This typical desert landscape has attracted many experts and explorers to visit here.

In Uyghur, Aiding Lake is called Jue Luo Huan, which means Moonlight Lake. Aiding Lake is an inland saltwater lake with an altitude of154m, which is the lowest place in China and the second lowest place in the world. Because most of the lake is a dry bottom, it is full of silvery crystal salt, which shines in the sun like moonlight on a cold night, hence the name. However, few people can really see the moonlight reflected on the surface of Lake Aiding now. Because Lake Aiding has shrunk dramatically, almost dried up and turned into a big salt marsh.

It covers an area of about 22 square kilometers (the lake reached 152 square kilometers in the 1940s). The lake is very shallow, with an average of less than 0.8m, and sometimes there is no water. Lake Aiding is a diving overflow lake, which consists of three parts. Surrounded by a lake plain, the width is about 0.5- 1 km. This circle contains a lot of salt, and due to strong evaporation, a hard salt field is formed on the surface. The middle circle is a salt swamp, and the bottom is silt. The center of the lake is crystal clear white salt crystals. Water melted by snow and ice flows into the lake in summer, but it evaporates strongly in summer and autumn, and the salinity of the lake is also extremely high. People are easily confused by the mirage here.

The Aiding Lake Basin is 40 kilometers long from east to west and 8 kilometers wide from north to south. The bottom of the lake is shallow and flat, but there is still some water in the southwest, and the water depth does not exceed 1 m. Lake water is bitter and salty, with salinity of 2 10g/ l, and most of it is chloride. Due to the continuous decrease of the amount of water entering the lake and the long-term evaporation and concentration of the lake, abundant salt and mirabilite are formed at the bottom and around the lake. In the past, the lakes and mountains reflected by moonlight have been replaced by hard, cracked, white salt fields near the lake and muddy salt marshes in the middle of the lake that make it difficult for tourists to get close. The environment of Aiding Lake, the second lowest place in the world, is simple and desolate. Now there is a mirabilite factory on the bank of Aiding Lake for tourists to take photos as a souvenir.