Stone Fort or Stone City is located in the north of downtown Tashkurgan. Tashkurgan was named after the Stone City or Stone Fort. The Stone City has a history dating back more than 2000 years. It is located at where the middle and southern Silk routes from Kashgar, Yarkand and Kargilik meet. Tashkurgan has a long history as a stop on the Silk Road. Major caravan routes converged here leading to Kashgar in the north, Yecheng to the east, Badakhshan and Wakhan to the west, and Chitral and Hunza to the southwest (modern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan).
About 2000 years ago, during the Han dynasty, Tashkurgan was the main centre of the Kingdom of Puli mentioned in the Book of Han and the Book of the Later Han. Later it became known as Varshadeh. Mentions in the Weilüe of the Kingdom of Manli probably also refer to Tashkurgan.
