Aksu, Or Oksu, a commercial and manufacturing town of East Turkistan, about 250 m. N. E. of Cashgar; pop. estimated at about 50,000. It is situated in a fertile valley at the terminus of a road leading across the Thian Shan mountains to the Sungarian district of Ili, with which it has an extensive trade. Russian, Tartar, and Chinese caravans here effect their exchanges, and there are famous manufactures of a sort of unglazed cotton cloth called bias, elaborate saddlery of deer skin, and jewelled and jasper ornaments. While East Turkistan was under Chinese rule, the city had a Chinese garrison of 2,000 or 3,000 men. The inhabitants are industrious and hospitable. Aksu was the capital of the kings of Cashgar and Yarkand. In 1716 it was nearly destroyed by an earthquake, and at the beginning of the present century it was swept by a freshet in which 3,000 persons perished.