They are especially closely connected to the Taklamakan Desert comprising the Tarim Basin, both of which can be found in Xinjiang UAR, China.
Links to ancient inhabitants of the region are contentious since this might grant the modern Uyghurs with the right to claim "indigenous status".
Prior to this, the Uyghurs practiced Buddhism, a religion which originated from South Asia (India and Nepal) and which still remains the dominant religion of the neighboring Tibetan and Mongolian peoples in Western China and Mongolia as well as much of mainland Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka.
The Uyghurs as a people or a nation are held together largely by their distinct lifestyle as sedentary farmers living in several oases scattered across the Taklamakan Desert.
Pan-Turkic Jadidists and East Turkestan independence activists Muhammad Amin Bughra and Masud Sabri rejected the imposition of the name "Uyghur people" upon the Turkic people of Xinjiang by the Soviets and Chinese warlord Shen Shicai.
They wanted instead the name "Turkic ethnicity" (Chinese: 突厥族; pinyin: tūjué zú) to be applied to their people.
Within the movement, there is widespread support for the region to be renamed, since "Xinjiang" is perceived by independence activists as a colonial name.