Yarkant County, also known as Yakan County or Shache County, is a county in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of Northwestern China, located on the southern rim of the Taklamakan Desert in the Tarim Basin. It is one of 11 counties administered under the Kashgar Prefecture. The county, usually referred to as Yarkand in English, was the seat of an ancient Buddhist kingdom on the southern branch o…