The Turpan Oasis was a strategically significant centre on Xinjiang??? Northern Silk Route, site of the ancient cities of Yarkhoto (Jiaohe) and Karakhoja (Gaochang). Chinese armies first entered Turpan in the 2nd century BCE, during the reign of Han Emperor Wu Di (141-87) when the oasis was a centre of Indo-European Tocharian culture.

Turpan retained a distinctly Buddhist character until the time of the Chagatai Khanate in the 13th century, when Islam gradually became the dominant religion.