Situated in the northwest of China, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was known in China as the Western Territory in ancient times.

Its 1.66 million square kilometers represent about one-sixth of the total territory of the country, making it the largest of China's regions and provinces. Xinjiang also has the longest boundary among China's provinces and autonomous regions and shares 5,600 kilometers of frontier with Mongolia in the northeast, then Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the west, and then Afghanistan, Pakistan and India in the southwest.

(China.org.cn)