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The Ancient City of Gaochang lies at the foot of the Flaming Mountain 40 kilometers southeast of the Turpan County seat. Gaochang City was the political and cultural center in China's northwest for 1,500 years from the Han Dynasty, when the government began to station garrisons there, until the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), when the city began to deteriorate. Gaochang City has been a must passageway for communication between the East and West since the Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty, and an important section of the ancient Silk Road.
The Ancient City of Gaochang consists of the outer city, the inner city and the palace city. The walls of city are well preserved.
The inner city, which is located in the center of the outer city, has a 3-kilometer long wall, most of the west and the east sections of which are well preserved. The rectangular palace city is in the northern part of the city of Gaochang and it shares the north wall with the outer city and uses the north wall of the inner city as its south wall. There are still several 3 to 4 meters high earthen platforms in the palace city where the court of Huigu Gaochang Kingdom was seated.
In the north central part of the inner city, there is a high terrace on which stands a square pagoda built of adobe called "Khan's castle" which means "Imperial Palace". Somewhat to its west there is a half-underground, two-story structure which was probably the ruins of a palace.
The outer city is in a shape of rectangle with perimeter of about 5 kilometers, occupying an area of 2 million square meters. The walls were built by ramming and the foundation is 11.5 meters high and 12 meters wide. There are outstanding battlements on the outside of the city walls---“Mamian” structure. The west city has two gates, from one of which, the small town outside the city gate can still be seen. The southeast and southern part of the outer city is the temple area. The bigger temple area lies on the southwest part of the city. The original of the ruins are the gate of temple, yard, main hall, pagoda basement of storied niche, and some remaining mural and figures of Buddha can still be vaguely seen in the niches. Some ruins of “workshop” and “fair” still exist in the southeast and northeast outsider the ancient city, perhaps the workshops ruin of small handcraft industry.
The best preserved structures in the ruins is the large monastery in the south-western part of the city, with some of it's the front gate, courtyard, lecture hall, main hall, and monastic dormitories still preserved. It is said that Xuanzang the renowned Buddhist monk of the Tang period had lectures here in the year of 628 on his way to India.
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