A recent picture shows the historic Old Town in Kashgar, one of two cities home to China's ethnic Uygurs, being torn down piece by piece at the demand of the Chinese government.

The predominantly Muslim Uygurs ruled in what is now the Xinjiang Autonomous Region until 1759, when the Qing Dynasty took over the area. In 1955 the area was named an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China.

In recent years large numbers of Han Chinese have been migrating to the Uygur homeland to relieve population pressures and boost economic development.