Lop Nur

Lop Nur

Lop Nur is a sprawling military base, roughly the land mass of Virginia, in the arid Xinjiang region of China’s far west. China conducted its first underground nuclear test there in 1969, and the area was chosen for nuclear tests because it was so barren and isolated, without any permanent residents. But the broader Xinjiang region is home to the Uyghurs, a largely Muslim ethnic group who have long protested health threats from nuclear tests at the site, which began in 1964 after Mao decided to build the bomb. The early tests were capped by mushroom clouds and radioactive fallout.