'Lonely island' becomes bustling land port

The volume of overland trade passing through Kalasu, the only land port between China and Tajikistan, has grown more than 810 times during the past decade, a senior customs official said.

Kalasu is in the Pamir Plateau in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Its name means "black water" in the Tajik language.

The port's highest point is at 4,368 meters, and it is located 62 km from Tashkurgan, China's only Tajik autonomous county in Xinjiang's Kashgar prefecture. It is 1,009 km from Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.