URUMQI, June 30 (Xinhua) -- A new highway traversing the Taklimakan Desert in China's northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, was put into operation on Thursday.

Located in south Xinjiang's Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, the highway, connecting Yuli County and Qiemo County, is the third one across the Taklimakan Desert, the world's second-largest shifting-sand desert.

With the designed speed of 60 or 80 km per hour for different sections, the highway has a total length of 334 km, with 307 km passing through the desert.

The highway has been built with an estimated total investment of about 1.75 billion yuan (about 261.5 million U.S. dollars) and its construction started in October 2017.