It is one of the westernmost cities of China, near the border with Afghanistan , Kyrgyzstan , Tajikistan and Kashmir. With a population of over ,, Kashgar has served as a trading post and strategically important city on the Silk Road between China, the Middle East and Europe for over 2, years. At the convergence point of widely varying cultures and empires, Kashgar has been under the rule of the Chinese, Turkic, Mongol and Tibetan empires.
The city has also been the site of a number of battles between various groups of people on the steppes. The city was made into a Special Economic Zone in , the only city in western China with this distinction. Kashgar also forms a terminus of the Karakoram Highway , whose reconstruction is considered a major part of the multibillion-dollar China—Pakistan Economic Corridor. Ptolemy AD , in his Geography , Chapter Alternative historical Romanizations for "Kashgar" include Cascar [8] and Cashgar.
The earliest mention of Kashgar occurs when a Chinese Han dynasty envoy traveled the Northern Silk Road to explore lands to the west.
In the Book of Han , which covers the period between BCE and 23 CE, it is recorded that there were 1, households, 18, people and 2, persons able to bear arms. By the time covered by the Book of the Later Han roughly 25 to CE , it had grown to 21, households and had 3, men able to bear arms.
The Book of the Later Han provides a wealth of detail on developments in the region: [ citation needed ]. They numbered thirty-six kingdoms.
