Hotan is an oasis town on the southern rim of the Taklamakan desert, and its name has been attached to jade for more than two thousand years. Silk, jade, carpets and paper were all traded through here on the southern branch of the Silk Road, and most of those crafts are still practised in and around the town.
Jade
The White Jade River runs down from the Kunlun mountains through Hotan and carries nephrite, the soft green-white stone that Chinese carving has prized since the Bronze Age. The old practice was to collect it from the riverbed after the spring melt, and the town still has markets where raw stone is sorted, graded and sold, alongside shops selling carved pieces from small pendants to large ornaments. If you buy, ask about the type of stone and whether the carving is hand-cut or machine-finished - the price difference is large.
Atlas silk
Atlas silk is the region's signature fabric: a heavy, bright, warp-faced silk with irregular patterns that are not printed but created by tying and dyeing the warp threads before weaving. The colours - magenta, yellow, green, blue, black - are loud and usually combined in bold zigzags and rams-horn motifs. Workshops around Hotan demonstrate the whole process, from tying the bundles of warp threads and dyeing them in vats to setting up the loom and weaving the finished cloth. The fabric is sold by the metre and made into clothing, bags and cushion covers.
Carpets and paper
Hotan has a carpet mill that produces hand-knotted wool rugs, and you can watch the knotting, the trimming and the washing. Also worth seeking out is mulberry paper, made in villages near the town from the bark of the mulberry tree, beaten to a pulp, pressed into sheets and dried - a paper with a long history here and a distinctive, slightly rough texture.
Practical notes
Hotan is reached by air from Urumqi in about two hours or by road along the desert edge. The markets are busiest in the morning. Bargaining is normal in the jade market but less so in fixed-price shops. Regional rules on photography and on movement apply, and some districts require permits for foreign visitors, so check the current position with a licensed agency before travelling here.
