Word.ws English Dictionary

Lop Nur

Lop Nur proper noun: a largely dried up salt lake, known for being used as a nuclear testing site, located in southeastern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China.

Proper noun

Lop Nur

  1. A largely dried up salt lake, known for being used as a nuclear testing site, located in southeastern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China.
    • Kennedy at the time was greatly concerned over reports that the Chinese Communists were secretly conducting nuclear explosions at Lop Nor in Northwest China—a sure indication they were working on atomic weapons. This was the period when Moscow and Peking were still close to each other, otherwise it...[1983, James C. H. Shen, “Rejoining the Government”, in Robert Myers, editor, The U.S. & Free China: How the U.S. Sold Out Its Ally, Washington, D.C.: Acropolis Books Ltd., →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page...
    • I've taken camels over the forbidding Kum Tagh sand dunes and crossed the 200-kilometre-long dried-up lake-bed of Lop Nur.1998, John Hare, The Lost Camels of Tartary: A Quest Into Forbidden China, Abacus, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 4

Examples of Lop Nur in a sentence

  • His symbol was found by Sven Hedin even as far away as in Lop Nur in China (see Figs. 45-48).2016 [1924], Hermann Wieland, translated by Gregory Klanderud, Atlantis, Edda & Bible, Hermitage Helm, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 203:
  • China’s biggest shifting salt lake, Lop Nur (the site of China’s nuclear bomb tests) is also here.2015 May, Damian Harper et al., China (Lonely Planet), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 982:

Forms of Lop Nur

alternative formLop Nor

Origin of Lop Nur

From Uyghur لوپنۇر (lopnur), from Written Oirat ᠯᠣ᠊ᠫ ᠨᡇᡇᠷ (Lob nuur), from ᠯᠣ᠊ᠫ (Lob) + ᠨᡇᡇᠷ (nuur, “lake”), where the former is itself of unknown origin from older times, possibly Old Uyghur. Compare Mandarin 羅布淖爾 /罗布淖尔 (Luóbùnào'ěr), 羅布泊 /罗布泊 (Luóbù pō, “Lop Lake”).

Questions about Lop Nur

What does Lop Nur mean?
Lop Nur means a largely dried up salt lake, known for being used as a nuclear testing site, located in southeastern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China.
How do you use Lop Nur in a sentence?
His symbol was found by Sven Hedin even as far away as in Lop Nur in China (see Figs. 45-48).
What part of speech is Lop Nur?
Lop Nur is a proper noun.

Words near Lop Nur in the dictionary

  1. Looyenwork
  2. lop
  3. lop chong
  4. lop down
  5. Lop Nor
  6. Lop Nur
  7. lop off
  8. lop-eared
  9. lop-sided
  10. Lopadea Nouă
  11. lopadolith

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Lop Nur (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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