The Lop Nur reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Lop Nur

Lop Nur alternately Lop Nor or Lo-pu po is a group of small salt lakes and marshes in the desert in Malan, Xinjiang, in Northwestern China. They are located in the southeastern portion of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

There is no outlet. The primary source of water is the Tarim River. Though it was determined to be a single salt lake by ancient Chinese geographers, it has largely dried up from its 1928 measured area of 3100km².

Archaeology has discovered the buried remains of settlements along it ancient shorline.

Marco Polo passed near the lake, and the explorers Nikolai Mikhailovich Przhevalsky and Sven Anders Hedin visited the area.

Starting in 1964, the Chinese have used the lake for atomic tests.

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