The bottom of Aiding Lake is flat with shallow waters. The lakebed is 40 kilometers long from east to west and 8 kilometers wide from north to south. The water is only 1 meter deep at its deepest point. The lake now occupies a much smaller area than before, with bitter salt water remaining only in the western part. The water's mineral content is as high as 200 grams per liter. As a result of strong evaporation for many years, niter and salt mines have collected at the bottom of the lake.

  'The Sweetest'

The Turpan Basin is also known for producing some of the sweetest fruit in the country. Geologically, a blocked basin, rare cloud formations and high temperatures are considered unique if they all appear in the same place. And Turpan is endowed with all of these factors, which, in turn, produce abundant thermal energy. This natural condition has furnished the region with a top environment for agriculture and gardening.

Statistics show that there are more than 300 clear days in Turpan, with only one to three days with 80-percent cloud coverage, and Turpan is frost-free for an average 268 days per year.

Since the seedless grapes produced in Turpan are said to be the sweetest in the world, Turpan is called the "sweetest place" by friends from around the planet. Since the 1960s, 300 new strains of grapes have been introduced from abroad for trial planting, substantially enriching the basin's grape variety. 

Hami melon is another special local product in the Turpan Basin, boasting such fine-quality varieties as Crisp Red-Core, Black Eyebrow, Honey Sweet, Paotai Red, Bag of Sugar and Golden Dragon. Many Hami melons are exported abroad and sold to other places in China. They are reputed as the most precious fruit.

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