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Uyghur People: Oasis Bread, Wind-Dried Grapes and the Muqam

Customs
Oct 22, 2026
Latticed mud-brick raisin-drying houses above a green vineyard below a bare desert hill in Turpan's Grape Valley

The Uyghur people are an oasis people. That one word explains more about them than any map. Their towns sit where snowmelt from the mountains meets the desert, around the rim of the Taklamakan and in the hot Turpan basin. So their bread is baked in clay ovens, their grapes are dried by the wind, and their music fills long evenings in shaded courtyards. This guide follows that oasis thread. It covers who the Uyghurs are, how they speak and believe, what they wear and eat, the music UNESCO lists, and where a visitor can actually meet the culture.

Who the Uyghur People Are

The Uyghurs (维吾尔族, Weiwu’erzu) are one of China’s officially recognised ethnic groups. China’s 2020 census counted 11,774,538 of them, and almost all live in Xinjiang, in the far northwest (Wikipedia, 2026a). For how the groups fit together nationally, see our overview of ethnic groups in China.

Xinjiang is huge, though, and the Uyghurs are not spread evenly across it. Most live south of the Tianshan range. Kashgar, Hotan, Aksu and Kucha are the old oasis cities there. Turpan and Hami sit to the east. The north, by contrast, is mostly grassland, and Kazakh, Mongol and Tuvan herders shape it more. That is the country of Kanas Lake.

A Turkic language in an Arabic-based script

Uyghur is a Turkic language. More precisely, it belongs to the Karluk branch, which makes Uzbek its closest relative (Wikipedia, 2026a). A Turkish speaker will catch familiar words — numbers, family terms, bread. Still, full conversation takes real effort.

The script is the surprise. Uyghur is written in a Perso-Arabic alphabet of 32 letters, read right to left. Unlike Arabic, it writes its vowels as full letters, eight of them (Wikipedia, 2026b). You will see it on shop signs, usually beside Chinese characters.

Faith in daily life

Most of the Uyghur people are Sunni Muslim (Wikipedia, 2026a). For a visitor, that shows up in quiet, everyday ways. Restaurants serve halal food, so lamb and beef replace pork. The neighbourhood mosque anchors each old quarter. And the two Eids set the rhythm of the year, as the next sections show.

What the Uyghur People Wear

Two things stand out in any bazaar: the caps and the silk.

  • The doppa — a square or round skullcap, embroidered and sometimes beaded. Men, women and children all wear it. The pattern can hint at the wearer’s hometown, age or status, and women traditionally did the embroidery (Wikipedia, 2026c). Kashgar has whole lanes of doppa makers.
  • Etles (atlas) silk — a silk ikat in blazing zigzags of red, yellow, green and blue. The threads are dyed before weaving, so the edges of each colour blur slightly. Hotan, on the southern oasis road, is one of the biggest weaving centres (Wikipedia, 2026d).

If ikat sounds familiar, that is because it is not only Uyghur. Uzbek weavers make the same cloth, and similar techniques turn up as far away as Indonesia and Guatemala. The Uyghur version is simply louder. Think of it as Central Asia’s answer to tartan: a fabric that signals home from across a street.

Uyghur Food: Naan, Polo and Turpan Grapes

The kitchen of the Uyghur people runs on wheat, lamb, cumin and fruit. It is hearty food, built for long days and dry air. Above all, it is bread food.

  • Naan — the staple, baked on the hot walls of a clay oven called a tonur (Wikipedia, 2026e). Yes, it is a close cousin of the Indian tandoor. Some loaves are thick as a plate; others are thin and stamped with patterns.
  • Polo — rice steamed over lamb, onion and sliced yellow carrot, sometimes with raisins. It is a pilaf, like Uzbek plov, and traditionally the dish for guests.
  • Laghman — hand-pulled noodles under a stir-fry of lamb, peppers and tomato. It likely grew from the same roots as Chinese lamian (Wikipedia, 2026e). Compare it with Lanzhou beef noodles and the family resemblance is clear.
  • Kawap — lamb skewers with cumin and chili, grilled at roadside stalls.
  • Samsa — lamb pies baked inside the tonur.
  • Tea — drunk at every meal, often with milk. Guests usually get tea, naan and fruit before anything else.

Grapes, wind and raisins

Then there are the grapes. Turpan is one of the hottest, lowest places in China, yet it grows sweet seedless grapes in a valley east of the city. According to one estimate, Turpan supplies more than 80% of China’s raisins (Wikipedia, 2026f). The secret is a building called a chunche. It is a brick drying house whose walls are full of holes. The hot desert wind blows through, and grapes hanging in the shade inside slowly turn into green raisins (Wikipedia, 2026g).

Water, meanwhile, arrives underground. Turpan’s karez are hand-dug tunnels that carry snowmelt from the mountains without losing it to evaporation. There are close to 1,000 of them, running roughly 5,000 kilometres in total (Wikipedia, 2026h). The idea matches the qanats of Iran — and that is no coincidence on a Silk Road.

Music and Dance of the Uyghur People

If you remember one art form, make it the muqam. Two Uyghur traditions sit on UNESCO’s lists, and our overview of intangible cultural heritage in China places them among the rest.

  • Uyghur Muqam — inscribed in 2008. It is a family of song, dance and instrumental music. The largest form, the Twelve Muqam, holds more than 300 pieces in twelve suites and runs over 20 hours (UNESCO, 2008). Picture a Baroque suite stretched to the length of a cricket match.
  • Meshrep — inscribed in 2010 on the list for urgent safeguarding. UNESCO calls it “the most important cultural carrier of Uygur traditions” (UNESCO, 2010). It is an evening gathering of music, dance, jokes, games and food. Our guide to Meshrep, the Uyghur gathering explains how one unfolds.

Listen for the instruments, too. The dutar is a long-necked, two-stringed lute. The rawap is plucked and brighter. And the dap, a large frame drum, keeps time for the dancers (Wikipedia, 2026a). Sanam is the dance you are most likely to join; it turns up at weddings and parties, with raised arms and small, quick turns.

Festivals in the Uyghur Year

  • Roza Heyt — Eid al-Fitr, the feast at the end of Ramadan. Families visit each other, and tables fill with sweets and fried pastries.
  • Qurban Heyt — Eid al-Adha, known in Chinese as Corban Festival (古尔邦节). It is the bigger of the two. Families share lamb, visit graves, and dance in the squares.
  • Noruz — the spring new year around the equinox, celebrated with group dances and crisp fried sangza twists (Wikipedia, 2026a).

Note that both Eids follow the Islamic lunar calendar. So they move about 11 days earlier each year against the Western calendar. Check the year’s dates before planning around them.

Where to Meet the Uyghur People as a Visitor

Kashgar: the old town and the markets

Start in Kashgar if you can. Kashgar Old Town is a maze of earthen houses, coppersmiths, hat-makers and bakeries. The yellow-fronted Id Kah Mosque, first built in 1442, faces the main square (Wikipedia, 2026i). Hours and tickets for visitors change, so ask locally. Kashgar’s big markets, including the livestock market, have traditionally been busiest on Sundays. Confirm the current day before you go.

Turpan: grapes, karez and ruins

  • Grape Valley — about 10 km east of the city, with trellised walks and raisin stalls (Wikipedia, 2026f). Late summer is harvest time.
  • A karez site — several museums let you walk down into a working tunnel.
  • Jiaohe Ruins — an ancient city carved from a river terrace. It is part of the Silk Roads: Chang’an–Tianshan Corridor, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2014 (Wikipedia, 2026j).
  • Emin Minaret — finished in 1778, about 44 metres tall, faced in patterned sun-dried brick (Wikipedia, 2026k).

Urumqi and beyond

Urumqi, the capital, is the usual way in. Its Grand Bazaar opened in 2003 near Erdaoqiao, and it is an easy first taste of Uyghur crafts and food (Wikipedia, 2026l). From there, our guide to the Xinjiang Tianshan covers the mountains between north and south. Coming overland? The Silk Road railway passes Dunhuang on its way west.

Prefer a classroom? Xinjiang University in Urumqi takes international students. In Beijing, Minzu University of China leads the country in ethnic studies.

Etiquette Among the Uyghur People

  • Ask before photographing people, especially women and elders.
  • Dress modestly near mosques — covered shoulders and knees.
  • Treat naan with care. Many families never throw bread away or leave it upside down.
  • Accept tea with both hands, or at least with the right.
  • Do not bring pork or alcohol into a Uyghur home unless your host clearly invites it.
  • Learn one greeting: yaxshimusiz (“hello”). It opens doors in a bazaar.

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. Is Uyghur the same as Chinese? No. It is a Turkic language with its own Arabic-based script. Most people in towns also speak Mandarin.
  2. Is Uyghur food spicy? Mildly. Cumin and dried chili lead, but it is far gentler than Sichuan cooking.
  3. When is the best time to visit? Spring and autumn for the south. August and September for Turpan’s grape harvest, though it is very hot.
  4. Can visitors watch muqam? Often, yes — at restaurants, cultural venues and festivals. Ask a hotel which evenings have live music.
  5. Where is atlas silk woven? Mainly around Hotan, in southern Xinjiang.

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