Overview
Gaochang lies about 30 kilometres southeast of Turpan on the northern edge of the Taklamakan desert fringe. Successive oasis polities used the site from at least the early centuries CE; under the Tang dynasty it was a prefectural seat, and from the mid–9th to 13th centuries it flourished as capital of the Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho (Idiqut), a major Silk Road power practising Buddhism and, for a time prominently, Manichaeism.
The surviving enceinte of massive mud-brick walls encloses an urban area of roughly two square kilometres with inner citadel, palace areas, and temple compounds. Nearby Astana and Karakhoja cemeteries produced famous dry-preserved texts, silks, and food offerings that illuminate daily life and multilingual literacy (Chinese, Old Uyghur, Iranian languages). Albert von Le Coq and other early explorers published murals and manuscripts from Gaochang’s temples — many now in European museums — before Chinese archaeological teams undertook systematic protection.
"Gaochang was a great city of walls and temples where Uighur kings ruled as Idiquts, and the doctrines of the Buddha and of Mani were both known among its people."
— Composite from Tang and Uyghur historical notices of Qocho
Gaochang and Jiaohe together define the Turpan oasis’s twin urban poles: Jiaohe as earlier plateau fortress-capital, Gaochang as sprawling desert-plain capital of later Silk Road empires.
