The elevation of the plain about Kashgar and Yarkand is from 4000 to 6000 ft.
To General the west of Kashgar the central depression is limited by physio- the meridional range of Sarikol and the great elevation graphs* of the Pamir, of which the Sarikol is the eastern face.
From it the Oxus, or Amu, flows off to the west, and the Jaxartes, or Syr, to the north, through the Turki state of Khokand, while to the east the waters run down past Kashgar to the central desert of the Gobi, uniting with the streams from the northern slope of the Tibetan plateau that traverse the principalities of Yarkand and Khotan, which are also Turki.
Robert Barkley Shaw and George Hayward were the European pioneers of geography into the central dominion of Kashgar, arriving at Yarkand within a few weeks of each other in 1868.
On the western edge of the Kashgar plains, the political boundary between Russia and China is defined by the meridional range of Sarikol.