Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking, majority Muslim people who live primarily in the westernmost territory of the People’s Republic of China, in what is officially known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Uyghur culture grew out of the fertile oases that skirt the Taklamakan Desert and that for centuries supported the towns and cities that served as the stopping points for Silk Road traders. The most famous of these is Kashgar, where a number of trade routes converged on the city’s great bazaar.