Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County (sometimes spelled Tashkorgan, Taxkorgan, Taj Qurghan, etc.) is one of the counties of Kashgar Prefecture in western Xinjiang, China.
Tashkurgan County is located in the eastern part of the Pamir Plateau, where the Kunlun, Karakoram, Hindukush and Tian Shan mountains come together, at the borders with Afghanistan (Wakhan Corridor), Tajikistan (Gorno-Badakhshan Province) and Pakistan (Gilgit-Baltistan). The county seat is Tashkurgan Town.
During the Han dynasty, Tashkurgan was known as Puli (蒲犁); during the Tang dynasty, it was a protectorate of the Parthians, during the Yuan dynasty it was part of the Chaghatai empire. Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County was created in 1954 and is part of the district of Kashgar.
Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County on the Pamirs Plateau is one of the four stone cities of the world.
Tajik is a general designation for a wide range of Persian-speaking people of Iranian origin, with traditional homelands in present-day Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Tajik people, one of China’s ethnic minorities, lives there.
The Tajik nationality in China speaks two distinct languages: Sarikoli and Wakhi. The Tajik are probably the one group in China most unlike the Han Chinese. They are a Caucasian people with light skin. Many have green or blue eyes and fair hair. They speak a Persian (Iranian) language which is part of the Indo-European language group. The term Tajik is applied to various Iranianspeaking groups of Central Asia in differing ways.
Three quarters of China's Tajiks speak Sarikoli. It is described as "a language entirely different from the majority language spoken in Tajikistan."
The Tajik in China do not have their own written script, but some use the Uygur orthography. The two Tajik languages in China are reportedly different enough that speakers from each group must use Uygur to communicate.
The Tajik people in China still maintain a simple and traditional lifestyle. Below are photos about their life in Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County (Photos/www.81.cn) (Source - en.people.cn)
Read more - 56 official recognized ethnic groups in mainland China