Lop Lake (Uyghur: لوپنۇر; Chinese: ; Pinyin: Luóbù Pō; also Lake Lop, Lop Nuur, Lop Nur) is a group of small, now seasonal salt lake sand marshes between the Taklamakan and Kuruktag deserts in the southeastern portion of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China. The lake system into which the Tarim River empties is the last remnant of the historical post-glacial Tarim Lake, which once covered more than 10,000 km2 (3,900 sq mi) in the Tarim Basin. Lop Nur is hydrologically endorheic—it is landbound and there is no outlet.

Though it was determined to be a single salt lake by ancient Chinese geographers, the lake system has largely dried up from its 1928 measured area of 3,100 km2 (1,200 sq mi) and the desert has spread by windblown sandy loess. This has shifted the lake system 30 to 40 kilometres (19 to 25 mi) westwards during the past 40 years. A partial cause for the destabilization of the desert has been the cutting of poplars and willows for firewood; in response, a reserve was established in 2003 to preserve 3,520 km2 (1,360 sq mi) of poplar.

Former water resources of the Tarim River and Lop Nur nurtured the kingdom of Loulan, an ancient civilization along the Silk Road, which skirted the lake-filled basin. Loulan became a client-state of the Chinese empire in 55 BCE, renamed Shanshan. Once the lake also supported a thriving Tocharian culture.

Archaeologists have discovered the buried remains of settlements, as well as several of the Tarim mummies, along its ancient shoreline. Marco Polo passed near the lake, and the famous explorers Ferdinand von Richthofen, Nikolai Przhevalsky, Sven Hedin and Aurel Stein visited and studied the area. It is also likely that Swedish soldier Johan Gustaf Renat had visited the area when he was helping the Zunghars to produce maps over the area in the eighteenth century.

The first Chinese nuclear bomb test, codenamed "596", was tested at Lop Nur in 1964. The PRC detonated its first hydrogen bomb on June 17, 1967. Since 1964, the lake has been used as a nuclear test site.

Until 1996, 45 nuclear tests were conducted. The headquarters of the test base is at Malan, about 125 km (78 mi) northwest of Qinggir.

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