Karez Wells (Karez Paradise)
坎儿井民俗园
An underground irrigation system known together with the Great Wall and the Grand Canal as one of China's three great ancient engineering works. You can walk into the underground channel and touch snowmelt from the Tianshan Mountains.
The karez is an underground water-diversion system that Turpan people built to draw water in the extremely arid basin. A line of vertical shafts is dug along the alluvial fan at the foot of the mountains, and the shafts are connected at their bottoms by underground channels. Groundwater formed by Tianshan snowmelt is channeled to the oases, then distributed through open channels and laoba (storage ponds) to irrigate farmland, with no evaporation and no contamination. Turpan has more than 1,000 surviving karez, totaling over 5,000 km, and most are still in use. In 2024 they were listed as a World Irrigation Heritage. The Karez Folk Park is in Yar Town on the western outskirts of the city, about 5 km from the Jiaohe Ruins, making it the most convenient place to visit. The park has a Karez Museum, which explains the principles of shafts, underground channels, dragon-mouth outlets, and laoba through models, cross-sections and artifacts, along with the tools Uyghurs used to dig karez. The highlight is walking down a staircase into a real underground channel, where the temperature is more than 10 degrees lower than at the surface, and you can watch clear snowmelt flowing past. The park also has Uyghur houses, grape trellises, handicraft workshops and folk song and dance performances, and the shop at the exit sells raisins and dried fruit. Admission is about 40 yuan, and a visit takes about an hour. Other similar sites in town, such as Karez Paradise and Karez Source, offer similar content, so just choose one. Note: The underground channel is slippery and dimly lit, so wear non-slip shoes. Tour groups concentrate in the morning during peak season, so visiting around midday is recommended.
Opening hours
08:30–20:00 (peak season); 10:00–18:00 (off-season)
Nearby sights
- Turpan Museum
- Emin Minaret
- Jiaohe Ruins
- Aydingkol Lake
- Flaming Mountains
- Gaochang Ruins
- Astana Cemetery
- Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves