Gujangbagh

Hotan and its surrounding area were originally known as Godana in ancient Sanskrit cosmological texts. The Chinese transcribed the name as 于窴, pronounced Gudana in Middle Chinese (Yutian in modern Standard Chinese); the pronunciation eventually morphed into Khotan. In the 7th century, the Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar Xuanzang attempted to remedy this lexical change. Xuanzang, who was well-versed in Sanskrit, proposed that the traditional name was in fact Kustana (गौस्तन) and asserted it meant "breast of the earth". However, this was likely borrowed from the Tibetan name for the region, Gosthana, which means "land of cows". It is therefore most likely that the original name of Hotan was Sanskritic in origin, a consequence of ancient Indian settlement in the region. An alternative etymology is proposed by Harold Walter Bailey, an expert in the Khotanese language. …

The oasis of Hotan is strategically located at the junction of the southern (and most ancient) branch of the Silk Road joining China and the West with one of the main routes from ancient India and Tibet to Central Asia and distant China. It provided a convenient meeting place where not only goods, but technologies, philosophies, and religions were transmitted from one culture to another. Tocharians lived in this region over 2000 years ago. Several of the Tarim mummies were found in the region. At Sampul, east of the city of Hotan, there is an extensive series of cemeteries scattered over an area about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) wide and 23 km (14 mi) long. The excavated sites range from about 300 BCE to 100 CE. …

Hotan has a temperate zone, cold desert climate (Köppen BWk), with a mean annual total of only 36.5 millimetres (1.44 in) of precipitation falling on 17.3 days of the year. Due to its southerly location in Xinjiang just north of the Kunlun Mountains, during winter it is one of the warmest locations in the region, with average high temperatures remaining above freezing throughout the year. The monthly 24-hour average temperature ranges from −3.9 °C (25.0 °F) in January to 25.8 °C (78.4 °F) in July, and the annual mean is 13.03 °C (55.5 °F). The diurnal temperature variation is not large for a desert, averaging 11.8 °C (21.2 °F) annually. Although no month averages less than half of possible sunshine, the city only receives 2,587 hours of bright sunshine annually, which is on the low end for Xinjiang; monthly percent possible sunshine ranges from 50% in March to 75% in October. …