Taklamakan is one of the largest sandy deserts in the world, ranking 15th in size in a ranking of the world's largest non-polar deserts. It covers an area of 270,000 km2 (100,000 sq mi) of the Tarim Basin, 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) long and 400 kilometres (250 mi) wide. It is crossed at its northern and at its southern edges by two branches of the Silk Road as travelers sought to avoid the arid wasteland.

In 2008, China's biggest desert experienced its biggest snowfall and lowest temperature after 11 consecutive days of snow. Snow is rare in the desert that covered 337,600 square kilometers, never before had the whole desert been covered.

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Snow crystals form when tiny supercooled cloud droplets freeze. These droplets are able to remain liquid at temperatures lower than −18 °C (0r °F), because to freeze, a few molecules in the droplet need to get together by chance to form an arrangement similar to that in an ice lattice; then the droplet freezes around this "nucleus."

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