1.
Summit
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A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. Mathematically, a summit is a maximum in elevation. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak, and zenith are synonymous, the UIAA definition is that a summit is independent if it has a prominence of 30 metres or more, it is a mountain if it has a prominence of at least 300 metres. This can be summarised as follows, A pyramidal peak is an exaggerated form produced by ice erosion of a mountain top, Summit may also refer to the highest point along a line, trail, or route. In many parts of the western United States, the term refers to the highest point along a road, highway. For example, the highest point along Interstate 80 in California is referred to as Donner Summit while the highest point on Interstate 5 is Siskiyou Mountain Summit, geoid Hill List of highest mountains Maxima and minima Nadir Summit accordance Peak finder
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Biome
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A biome /ˈbaɪoʊm/ is a community of plants and animals that have common characteristics for the environment they exist in, and can be found over a range of continents. Spanning continents, biomes are distinct biological communities that have formed in response to a shared physical climate, biome is a broader term than habitat, any biome can comprise a variety of habitats. While a biome can cover large ares, a microbiome is a mix of organisms that coexist in a space as well. For example, the microbiome is the collection of bacteria, viruses. The biotas of the Earth make up the biosphere, the term was suggested in 1916 by Clements, originally as a synonym for biotic community of Möbius. In 1935, Tansley added the climatic and soil aspects to the idea, the International Biological Program projects popularized the concept of biome. However, in contexts, the term biome is used in a different manner. Both includes many biomes in fact and their boundaries must therefore be drawn arbitrarily and their characterization made according to the average conditions that predominate in them. A1978 study on North American grasslands found a positive correlation between evapotranspiration in mm/yr and above-ground net primary production in g/m2/yr. These findings help explain the categories used in Holdridge’s bioclassification scheme, Holdridge uses the four axes to define 30 so-called humidity provinces, which are clearly visible in his diagram. While this scheme largely ignores soil and sun exposure, Holdridge acknowledged that these were important and his scheme can be seen as a simplification of Holdridges, more readily accessible, but missing Holdridges greater specificity. Whittaker based his approach on theoretical assertions and empirical sampling and he was in a unique position to make such a holistic assertion because he had previously compiled a review of biome classifications. Physiognomy, the apparent characteristics, outward features, or appearance of communities or species. Biome, a grouping of terrestrial ecosystems on a continent that are similar in vegetation structure, physiognomy, features of the environment. Formation, a kind of community of plants on a given continent. Biome-type, grouping of convergent biomes or formations of different continents, whittakers distinction between biome and formation can be simplified, formation is used when applied to plant communities only, while biome is used when concerned with both plants and animals. Whittakers convention of biome-type or formation-type is simply a method to categorize similar communities. Whittaker considered four main ecoclines in the terrestrial realm, changes in physiognomic complexity vary with how favorable of an environment exists
4.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
5.
Chinese language
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Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
6.
Lop Nor
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Administratively, the lake is in Lop Nur township of Ruoqiang County, which in its turn is part of the Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture. The lake system into which the Tarim River and Shule River empty is the last remnant of the historical post-glacial Tarim Lake, Lop Nur is hydrologically endorheic— it is landbound and there is no outlet. The lake measured 3,100 km2 in 1928, but has dried up due to construction of dams blocked the flow of water feeding into the lake system. The dried-up Lop Nur Basin is covered with a salt crust ranging from 30 cm to 1 m in thickness. Lop Nur has been used as a testing site. From around 1800 BC, until the 9th century the lake 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. Former water resources of the Tarim River and Lop Nur nurtured the kingdom of Loulan since the second century BC, an ancient civilization along the Silk Road, Loulan became a client-state of the Chinese empire in 55 BC, renamed Shanshan. Marco Polo in his travels passed through the Lop Desert, and 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 lake was given names in ancient Chinese texts. In Shiji it was called Yan Ze, indicating its saline nature, in Hanshu it was called Puchang Hai and was given a dimension of 300 to 400 li in length and breadth, indicating it was once a lake of great size. These early texts also mentioned the belief, mistaken as it turns out and this shift of the terminal lake caused some confusion amongst the early explorers as to the exact location of Lop Nur. The change in the course of the river, which resulted in Lop Nur drying up, was suggested by Hedin as the reason why ancient settlements such as Loulan had perished. In 1921, due to intervention, the terminal lake shifted its position back to Lop Nur. The lake measured 2400 km2 in area in 1930-31, in 1934 Sven Hedin went down the new Kuruk Darya in a canoe. He found the delta to be a maze of channels and the new lake so shallow that it was difficult to even in a canoe. In 1900 he had walked the dry Kuruk Darya in a caravan, in 1952 the terminal lake then shifted to Taitema Lake when the Tarim River and Konque River were separated through human intervention, and Lop Nur dried out again by 1964. In 2000, in an effort to prevent further deterioration of the ecosystem, the Taitema Lake however had shifted 30 to 40 kilometres westwards during the past 40 years due in part to the spread of the desert. Another cause of the destabilization of the desert has been the cutting of poplars and willows for firewood, in response, the Kara-Koshun dried basin may be considered part of the greater Lop Nur
7.
Tarim Basin
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The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in northwest China occupying an area of about 1,020,000 km2. Its northern boundary is the Tian Shan mountain range and its boundary is the Kunlun Mountains on the edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The Taklamakan Desert dominates much of the basin, the historical Uyghur name for the Tarim Basin is Altishahr, which means six cities in Uyghur. They were governed separately until 1884, north side, The Chinese called this the Tien Shan Nan Lu or Tien Shan South Road, as opposed to the Bei Lu north of the mountains. Along it runs the modern highway and railroad while the middle Tarim River is about 100 km south, Kashgar was where the caravans met before crossing the mountains. Center, Most of the basin is occupied by the Taklamakan Desert which is too dry for permanent habitation, the Yarkand, Kashgar and Aksu Rivers join to form the Tarim River which runs along the north side of the basin. Formerly it continued to Loulan, but some time after 330AD it turned southeast near Korla toward Charkilik, the Tarim ended at the now-dry Lop Nur which occupied a changing position east of Loulan. Eastward is the fabled Jade Gate which the Chinese considered the gateway to the Western Regions, beyond that is Dunhuang with its ancient manuscripts and then Anxi at the west end of the Gansu Corridor. The modern road continues east to Tibet, there is no current road east across the Kumtag Desert to Dunhuang, but caravans somehow made the crossing thru the Yangguan pass south of the Jade Gate. Roads and passes, rivers and caravan routes, The Southern Xinjiang Railway branches from the Lanxin Railway near Turpan, follows the side of the basin to Kashgar. Roads, The main road from eastern China reaches Urumchi and continues as highway 314 along the side to Kashgar. Highway 315 follows the side from Kashgar to Charkilik and continues east to Tibet. There are currently four north-south roads across the desert,218 runs from Charkilik to Korla along the former course of the Tarim forming an oval whose other end is Kashgar. The Tarim Desert Highway, an engineering achievement, crosses the center from Niya to Luntai. The new Highway 217 follows the Khotan River from Khotan to near Aksu, a road follows the Yarkand River from Yarkand to Baqu. East of the Korla-Charkilik road travel continues to be very difficult, Rivers coming south from the Tien Shan join the Tarim, the largest being the Aksu. Rivers flowing north from the Kunlun are usually named for the town or oasis they pass through, Most dry up in the desert, only the Hotan River reaching the Tarim in good years. An exception is the Qiemo River which flowed northeast into Lop Nor, ruins in the desert imply that these rivers were once larger
8.
Tibetan Plateau
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It stretches approximately 1,000 kilometres north to south and 2,500 kilometres east to west. Sometimes termed the Third Pole, the Tibetan Plateau contains the headwaters of the basins of most of the streams in surrounding regions. Its tens of thousands of glaciers and other geographical and ecological features serve as a water tower storing water, the impact of global warming on the Tibetan Plateau is of intense scientific interest. The Tibetan Plateau is surrounded by mountain ranges. In the west the curve of the rugged Karakoram range of northern Kashmir embraces the plateau, the Indus River originates in the western Tibetan Plateau in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar. The Tibetan Plateau is bounded in the north by an escarpment where the altitude drops from around 5,000 metres to 1,500 metres over a horizontal distance of less than 150 kilometres. Along the escarpment is a range of mountains, in the west the Kunlun Mountains separate the plateau from the Tarim Basin. About halfway across the Tarim the bounding range becomes the Altyn-Tagh, in the V formed by this split is the western part of the Qaidam Basin. The Altyn-Tagh ends near the Dangjin pass on the Dunhuang-Golmud road, to the west are short ranges called the Danghe, Yema, Shule, and Tulai Nanshans. The easternmost range is the Qilian Mountains, the line of mountains continues east of the plateau as the Qin Mountains which separate the Ordos Region from Sichuan. North of the runs the Gansu or Hexi Corridor which was the main silk-road route from China proper to the West. The plateau is an arid steppe interspersed with mountain ranges. Annual precipitation ranges from 100 to 300 millimetres and falls mainly as hail, the southern and eastern edges of the steppe have grasslands which can sustainably support populations of nomadic herdsmen, although frost occurs for six months of the year. Permafrost occurs over parts of the plateau. Proceeding to the north and northwest, the plateau becomes progressively higher, colder and drier, here the average altitude exceeds 5,000 metres and winter temperatures can drop to −40 °C. The geological history of the Tibetan Plateau is closely related to that of the Himalayan mountain range, the Himalayas are among the youngest mountain ranges on the planet and consist mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock. Their formation is a result of a collision or orogeny along the convergent boundary between the Indo-Australian Plate and the Eurasian Plate. The collision began in the Upper Cretaceous period about 70 million years ago, since these sediments were light, they crumpled into mountain ranges rather than sinking to the floor
9.
Qinghai
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Qinghai, formerly known in English as Kokonur, is a province of the Peoples Republic of China located in the northwest of the country. As one of the largest province-level administrative divisions of China by area, the province is ranked fourth-largest in size, but has the third-smallest population. Located mostly on the Tibetan Plateau, the province has long been a melting pot for a number of groups including the Han, Tibetans, Hui, Tu, Mongols. Qinghai borders Gansu on the northeast, Xinjiang on the northwest, Sichuan on the southeast, Qinghai province was established in 1928 under the Republic of China period during which it was ruled by Chinese Muslim warlords known as the Ma clique. The Chinese name, Qinghai is named after Qinghai Lake, the largest lake in China, the province was known formerly as Kokonur in English, derived from the Oirat name for Qinghai Lake. During Chinas Bronze Age, Qinghai was home to the Qiang people who made a living in agriculture and husbandry. The eastern part of the area of Qinghai was under the control of the Han dynasty about 2000 years ago and it was a battleground during the Tang and subsequent Chinese dynasties when they fought against successive Tibetan tribes. In the middle of 3rd century CE, nomadic people related to the Mongolic Xianbei migrated to lands around the Qinghai Lake. In the 7th century, Tuyuhun Kingdom was attacked by both the Tibetan Empire and Tang dynasty as both of them control over trade routes. Military conflicts severely weakened the kingdom and it was incorporated into the Tibetan Empire, after the disintegration of the Tibetan Empire, small local factions emerged, some under the titular authority of China. The Song dynasty defeated the Tibetan Kokonor Kingdom in the 1070s, most of Qinghai was once also a short time under the control of early Ming dynasty, but later gradually lost to the Khoshut Khanate founded by the Oirats. The Xunhua Salar Autonomous County is where most Salar people live in Qinghai, the Salars migrated to Qinghai from Samarkand in 1370. The chief of the four upper clans around this time was Han Pao-yuan and Ming granted him office of centurion, the other chief Han Shan-pa of the four lower Salar clans got the same office from Ming, and his clans were the ones who took Ma as their surname. From 1640 to 1724, a big part of the area that is now Qinghai was under Khoshut Mongol control and it was during the 1720s when Xining Prefecture was established and its borders were roughly those of modern Qinghai province. Xining, the capital of modern Qinghai province was built in this period as the administrative center, during the rule of the Qing dynasty, the governor was a viceroy of the Qing Emperor, but the local ethnic groups enjoyed much autonomy. Many chiefs retained their authority, participating in local administrations. The Dungan revolt devastated the Hui Muslim population of Shaanxi, shifting the Hui center of population to Gansu, another Dungan revolt broke out in Qinghai in 1895 when various Muslim ethnic groups in Qinghai and Gansu rebelled against the Qing. In July–August 1912, General Ma Fuxiang was Acting Chief Executive Officer of Kokonur, in 1928, Qinghai province was created
10.
Gansu
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Gansu is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the northwest of the country. It lies between the Tibetan and Loess plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, the Yellow River passes through the southern part of the province. Gansu has a population of 26 million and covers an area of 425,800 square kilometres, the capital is Lanzhou, located in the southeast part of the province. Gansu is a compound of the names of Ganzhou and Suzhou, Gansu is abbreviated as 甘 or 陇, and is also known as Longxi or Longyou, in reference to the Long Mountain east of Gansu. Gansu is a name first used during the Song dynasty of two Sui and Tang dynasty prefectures, Gan and Su. In prehistoric times, Gansu was host to Neolithic cultures, the Dadiwan culture, from where archaeologically significant artifacts have been excavated, flourished in the eastern end of Gansu from about 6000 BC to about 3000 BC. The Majiayao culture and part of the Qijia culture took root in Gansu from 3100 BC to 2700 BC and 2400 BC to 1900 BC respectively, the Yuezhi originally lived in the very western part of Gansu until they were forced to emigrate by the Xiongnu around 177 BCE. The State of Qin, later to become the state of the Chinese empire, grew out from the southeastern part of Gansu. The Qin name is believed to have originated, in part, Qin tombs and artifacts have been excavated from Fangmatan near Tianshui, including one 2200-year-old map of Guixian County. In imperial times, Gansu was an important strategic outpost and communications link for the Chinese empire, the Han dynasty extended the Great Wall across this corridor, building the strategic Yumenguan and Yangguan fort towns along it. Remains of the wall and the towns can be found there, the Ming dynasty built the Jiayuguan outpost in Gansu. By the Qingshui treaty, concluded in 823 between the Tibetan Empire and the Tang dynasty, China lost a part of Gansu province for a significant period. After the fall of the Uyghur Empire, an Uyghur state was established in parts of Gansu that lasted from 848 to 1036 AD, during that time, many of Gansus residents were converted to Islam. Along the Silk Road, Gansu was an important province. Temples and Buddhist grottoes such as those at Mogao Caves and Maijishan Caves contain artistically and historically revealing murals. An early form of paper inscribed with Chinese characters and dating to about 8 BC was discovered at the site of a Western Han garrison near the Yumen pass in August 2006, the province was also the origin of the Dungan Revolt of 1862-77. Among the Qing forces were Muslim generals like Ma Zhanao and Ma Anliang who helped Qing crush the rebel Muslims, the revolt spread into Gansu from neighbouring Qinghai. Frequent earthquakes, droughts and famines have tended to slow progress of the province until recently
11.
Turkic languages
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The Turkic languages are a language family of at least thirty-five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples from Southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China. Turkic languages are spoken as a language by some 170 million people. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish, spoken mainly in Anatolia and the Balkans, characteristic features of Turkish, such as vowel harmony, agglutination, and lack of grammatical gender, are universal within the Turkic family. Apparent similarities with the Uralic languages family even caused these families to be regarded as one for a time under the hypothesis of Ural-Altaic languages. Turkic languages are languages, have vowel harmony, extensive agglutination by means of suffixes, and lack of grammatical articles, noun classes. Subject–object–verb word order is universal within the family, the geographical distribution of Turkic-speaking peoples across Eurasia ranges from the North-East of Siberia to Turkey in the West, since the Ottoman era. The two groups shared a religion, Tengrism, and there exists a multitude of evident loanwords between Turkic languages and Mongolic languages, although the loans were bidirectional, today Turkic loanwords constitute the largest foreign component in Mongolian vocabulary. The most famous of these loanwords include lion, gold, the Compendium of the Turkic Dialects, written during the 11th century AD by Kaşgarlı Mahmud of the Kara-Khanid Khanate, constitutes an early linguistic treatment of the family. The Compendium is the first comprehensive dictionary of the Turkic languages and it mainly pertains to the Southwestern branch of the family. The earliest records of the language spoken by Volga Bulgars, the parent to todays Chuvash language, are dated to the 13th–14th centuries AD. With the Turkic expansion during the Early Middle Ages, Turkic languages, in the course of just a few centuries, spread across Central Asia, various terminologies from the Turkic languages have passed into Persian, Hindustani, Russian, Chinese, and to a lesser extent, Arabic. This has obscured the historical developments within each language and/or language group, the modern genetic classification schemes for Turkic are still largely indebted to Samoilovich. It is not clear when two major types of Turkic can be assumed to have actually diverged. With less certainty, the Southwestern, Northwestern, Southeastern and Oghur groups may further be summarized as West Turkic, the following isoglosses are traditionally used in the classification of the Turkic languages, Rhoticisation, e. g. in the last consonant of the word for nine *toqqız. This separates the Oghur branch, which exhibits /r/, from the rest of Turkic, in this case, rhoticisation refers to the development of *-/r/, *-/z/, and *-/d/ to /r/, *-/k/, *-/kh/ in this branch. See Antonov and Jacques on the debate concerning rhotacism and lambdacism in Turkic and this separates Khalaj as a peripheral language. The following table is based upon the classification presented by Lars Johanson The following is a brief comparison of cognates among the basic vocabulary across the Turkic language family. Also, there may be shifts in the meaning from one language to another, in some cases the form given is found only in some dialects of the language, or a loanword is much more common
12.
Mountain range
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A mountain range is a geographic area containing numerous geologically related mountains. A mountain system or system of ranges, sometimes is used to combine several geological features that are geographically related. Mountain ranges are usually segmented by highlands or mountain passes and valleys, individual mountains within the same mountain range do not necessarily have the same geologic structure or petrology. They may be a mix of different orogenic expressions and terranes, for example thrust sheets, uplifted blocks, fold mountains, most geologically young mountain ranges on the Earths land surface are associated with either the Pacific Ring of Fire or the Alpide Belt. The Andes is 7,000 kilometres long and is considered the worlds longest mountain system. The Alpide belt includes Indonesia and southeast Asia, through the Himalaya, the belt also includes other European and Asian mountain ranges. The Himalayas contain the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest, mountain ranges outside of these two systems include the Arctic Cordillera, the Urals, the Appalachians, the Scandinavian Mountains, the Altai Mountains and the Hijaz Mountains. If the definition of a range is stretched to include underwater mountains. The mountain systems of the earth are characterized by a tree structure, the sub-range relationship is often expressed as a parent-child relationship. For example, the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Blue Ridge Mountains are sub-ranges of the Appalachian Mountains, equivalently, the Appalachians are the parent of the White Mountains and Blue Ridge Mountains, and the White Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains are children of the Appalachians. The position of mountains influences climate, such as rain or snow, when air masses move up and over mountains, the air cools producing orographic precipitation. As the air descends on the side, it warms again and is drier. Often, a shadow will affect the leeward side of a range. Mountain ranges are constantly subjected to forces which work to tear them down. Erosion is at work while the mountains are being uplifted and long after until the mountains are reduced to low hills, rivers are traditionally believed to be the principle erosive factor on mountain ranges, with their ability of bedrock incision and sediment transport. The rugged topography of a range is the product of erosion. The basins adjacent to a mountain range are filled with sediments which are buried and turned into sedimentary rock. The early Cenozoic uplift of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado provides an example and this mass of rock was removed as the range was actively undergoing uplift
13.
Kunlun Mountains
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The Kunlun Mountains are one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending more than 3,000 kilometres. In the broadest sense, it forms the edge of the Tibetan Plateau south of the Tarim Basin. The exact definition of this range varies, an old source uses Kunlun to mean the mountain belt that runs across the center of China, that is, Kunlun in the narrow sense, Altyn Tagh along with the Qilian and Qin Mountains. A recent source has the Kunlun range forming most of the side of the Tarim Basin. Sima Qian says that Emperor Wu of Han sent men to find the source of the Yellow River, the name seems to have originated as a semi-mythical location in the classical Chinese text Shanhai Jing. From the Pamirs of Tajikistan, it runs east along the border between Xinjiang and Tibet autonomous regions to the Sino-Tibetan ranges in Qinghai province. It stretches along the edge of what is now called the Tarim Basin, the infamous Takla Makan or sand-buried houses desert. A number of important rivers flow from it including the Karakash River and the Yurungkash River, altyn-Tagh or Altun Range is one of the chief northern ranges of the Kunlun. Its eastern extension Qilian Shan is another main northern range of the Kunlun, in the south main extension is the Min Shan. Bayan Har Mountains, a branch of the Kunlun Mountains. The highest mountain of the Kunlun Shan is the Kunlun Goddess in the Keriya area, the Arka Tagh is in the center of the Kunlun Shan, its highest point is Ulugh Muztagh. Some authorities claim that the Kunlun extends northwest-wards as far as Kongur Tagh, but these mountains are physically much more closely linked to the Pamir group. The mountain range formed at the edges of the Cimmerian Plate during its collision, in the Late Triassic, with Siberia. The range has very few roads and in its 3,000 km length is crossed by only two, in the west, Highway 219 traverses the range en route from Yecheng, Xinjiang to Lhatse, Tibet. Further east, Highway 109 crosses between Lhasa and Golmud, over 70 volcanic cones form the Kunlun Volcanic Group. They are not volcanic mountains, but cones, as such, they are not counted among the world volcanic mountain peaks. The group, however, musters the heights of 5,808 metres above sea level, if they were considered volcanic mountains, they would constitute the highest volcano in Asia and China and second highest in the Eastern Hemisphere and one of Volcanic Seven Summits by elevation. The last known eruption in the group was on May 27,1951
14.
Endorheic basin
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Such a basin may also be referred to as a closed or terminal basin or as an internal drainage system. However, in a basin, rain that falls within it does not flow out but may only leave the drainage system by evaporation. The bottom of such a basin is occupied by a salt lake or salt pan. Endorheic regions, in contrast to regions which flow to the ocean in geologically defined patterns, are closed hydrologic systems. Their surface waters drain to inland terminal locations where the water evaporates or seeps into the ground, endorheic water bodies include some of the largest lakes in the world, such as the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea, the worlds largest saline inland sea. Most endorheic basins are arid, although there are notable exceptions, such as the Valley of Mexico, the Lake Tahoe region. Endorheic basins can be massively and rapidly affected by change and excessive water removal. An exorheic lake naturally remains at a level, so water flow into the lake may be many times more than is needed to maintain its present size. In contrast, an endorheic basin does not have enough inflow that it overflows to the ocean, endorheic lakes are bodies of water that do not flow into the sea. Most of the water falling on Earth finds its way to the oceans through a network of rivers, lakes, however, there is a class of water bodies that are located in closed or endorheic watersheds where the topography prevents their drainage to the oceans. These endorheic watersheds are often called terminal lakes or sink lakes, endorheic lakes are usually in the interior of a landmass, far from an ocean in areas of relatively low rainfall. Their watersheds are often confined by natural geologic land formations such as a mountain range, the inland water flows into dry watersheds where the water evaporates, leaving a high concentration of minerals and other inflow erosion products. Over time this input of erosion products can cause the lake to become relatively saline. Endorheic regions can occur in any climate but are most commonly found in desert locations, the Black Sea was likely such a lake, having once been an independent hydrological system before the Mediterranean Sea broke through the terrain separating the two. Lake Bonneville was another such lake, overflowing its basin in the Bonneville flood, malheur/Harney Lake in Oregon is normally cut off from drainage to the ocean, but has an outflow channel to the Malheur River that is normally dry, but flows in years of peak precipitation. Examples of relatively humid regions in endorheic basins often exist at high elevation and these regions tend to be marshy and are subject to substantial flooding in wet years. The area containing Mexico City is one case, with annual precipitation of 850 mm. Endorheic regions tend to be far inland with their boundaries defined by mountains or other features that block their access to oceans
15.
Dunhuang
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For the 2005 full-length documentary Dunhuang, directed by Zhou Bing. Dunhuang is a city in northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. The 2000 Chinese census reported a population of 187,578 in this city, Dunhuang was a major stop on the ancient Silk Road and is best known for the nearby Mogao Caves. It has also known at times as Shazhou and, in Uyghur. Dunhuang is situated in a rich oasis containing Crescent Lake and Mingsha Shan, named after the sound of the wind whipping off the dunes, administratively, the county-level city of Dunhuang is part of the prefecture-level city of Jiuquan. There is evidence of habitation in the Dunhuang area as early as 2,000 BC. Its name was mentioned in relation to the homeland of the Yuezhi in the Records of the Grand Historian. By the third century BC, the area dominated by the Xiongnu. Dunhuang was one of the four garrison towns established by the Emperor Wu after the defeat of Xiongnu. The name Dunhuang, meaning Blazing Beacon, refers to the beacons lit to warn of attacks by marauding nomadic tribes, Dunhuang Commandery was probably established shortly after 104 BC. Located in the end of the Hexi Corridor near the historic junction of the Northern and Southern Silk Roads. The Great Wall was extended to Dunhuang, and a line of fortified beacon towers stretched westwards into the desert, Dunhuang prospered on the heavy flow of traffic. The first Buddhist caves in the Dunhuang area were hewn in 353, during the Sui and Tang dynasties, it was the main stop of communication between ancient China and the rest of the world and a major hub of commerce of the Silk Road. Dunhuang was the city of all three main silk routes during this time. From the West also came early Buddhist monks who had arrived in China by the first century AD, the caves carved out by the monks, originally used for meditation, developed into a place of worship and pilgrimage called the Mogao Caves or Caves of a Thousand Buddhas. A number of Christian, Jewish, and Manichaean artifacts have also found in the caves. During the time of the Sixteen Kingdoms, Li Gao established the Western Liang here in 400 AD, in 405 the capital of the Western Liang was moved from Dunhuang to Jiuquan. In 421 the Western Liang was conquered by the Northern Liang, as a frontier town, Dunhuang was fought over and occupied at various times by non-Han Chinese people
16.
Golmud
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Golmud, sometimes transliterated as Geermu or Geermu, is a county-level city in Qinghai Province, China, bordering Xinjiang to the northwest and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the southwest. Administrated by Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, it is the third largest city in Qinghai, the population is now about 205,700. The name of the city derives from Mongolian, and its meaning in the local Western Mongolian is Rivers. Golmud covers a area of 124,500 square kilometres. This includes an area of 72 km2. Golmud is located in the part of the Qaidam Basin with an elevation of 2,809 metres. Around the city there are more than 20 salt lakes of various sizes, a large part of the county-level city of Golmud forms an exclave, separated from the rest of the county by the western panhandle of the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Administratively, the forms the so-called Tanggula Town. In 1999, the population of the area of Golmud was approximately 200,000. The town had a population of 130,000, with ethnic Han Chinese comprising 90. 2%, due to its location, Golmud abounds with natural resources from nearby salt lakes. Thus, industries involving salt lake chemicals have sprung up, qarham Salt Lake to the northeast of Golmud proper boasts an area of 5,856 km2, making it the biggest inland salt lake in the world. Qarham Salt Lake resources are estimated to be worth over 15 trillion yuan, the lake is also Chinas largest production base for potassium, magnesium, and salt. Golmud also possesses natural gas reserves of 1 trillion m³ plus over 50 varieties of minerals like gold, copper, jade and precious stones, lead, other important industries in Golmud include petrochemicals, oil refineries, and gas fields. Statistics for 2001 show that the citys nominal GDP totalled 2.213 billion yuan, a rise of 31. 9% from the previous year, the Golmud Kunlun Economic Development Zone, which consists of an area of 28 km2, was built in 1992. Golmud is planned to become Chinas Salt Lake City, Golmud lies along the Qinghai–Tibet Railway, a 1,956 km railroad that starts from Xining and ends at Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region. The Golmud-Lhasa section, with a length of 1,142 km, was the last and most challenging part of the railway to be completed, after construction of 5 years, the first train for Lhasa left Golmud on 1 July 2006. In October 2012 construction started on the Golmud–Dunhuang Railway, a planned Golmud-Korla Railway running north west from Golmud into Xinjiang province began construction in November 2014. The Golmud-Lhasa highway, extending 1,050 km, is part of the 1, 930-km Qinghai-Tibet highway connecting Xining and Lhasa
17.
Qilian Mountains
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The range stretches from the south of Dunhuang some 800 km to the southeast, forming the northeastern escarpment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the southwestern border of the Hexi Corridor. The eponymous Qilian Shan peak, situated some 60 km south of Jiuquan, at 39°12′N 98°32′E, rises to 5,547 m. It is the highest peak of the range, but there are two higher peaks further south, Kangzegyai at 38°30′N 97°43′E with 5,808 m and Qaidam Shan peak at 38°2′N 95°19′E with 5,759 m. Other major peaks include Gangshiqia Peak in the east, the Nan Shan range continues to the west as Yema Shan and Altun Shan. To the east, it passes north of Qinghai Lake, terminating as Daban Shan and Xinglong Shan near Lanzhou, sections of the Ming Dynastys Great Wall pass along its northern slopes, and south of northern outlier Longshou Shan. The best known of these streams is the Ejin River, the characteristic ecosystem of the Qilian Mountains has been described by the World Wildlife Fund as the Qilian Mountains conifer forests. Biandukou, with an altitude of over 3500 m, is a pass in the Qilian Mountains and it links Minle County of Gansu in the north and Qilian County of Qinghai in the south. The Shiji mentions the Qilian mountains together with Dunhuang in relation to the homeland of the Yuezhi and this Qilian however has been suggested to be the mountains now known as Tian Shan,1,500 km to the west. Dunhuang has also argued to b the Dunhong mountain. Qilian is said to be as a Hunnic word meaning sky according to Yan Shigu, the mountain range was formerly known in European languages as Richthofen Range after Ferdinand von Richthofen, who was the Red Barons explorer-geologist uncle. The mountain range gives its name to Qinghais Qilian County, the Man Who Loved China, the Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom. ISBN 978-0-06-088459-8 peakbagger. com Climatological Information for Qilian Shan
18.
Silk road
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While the term is of modern coinage, the Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk carried out along its length, beginning during the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty expanded Central Asian sections of the routes around 114 BCE, largely through missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial envoy. The Chinese took great interest in the safety of their trade products, though silk was certainly the major trade item exported from China, many other goods were traded, as well as religions, syncretic philosophies, and various technologies. Diseases, most notably plague, also spread along the Silk Routes, in addition to economic trade, the Silk Road was a route for cultural trade among the civilizations along its network. The main traders during antiquity included the Chinese, Arabs, Turkmens, Indians, Persians, Somalis, Greeks, Syrians, Romans, Georgians, Armenians, Bactrians, in June 2014, UNESCO designated the Changan-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site. The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative Eurasian silk and horse trade, the German terms Seidenstraße and Seidenstraßen were coined by Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872. The term Silk Route is also used, although the term was coined in the 19th century, it did not gain widespread acceptance in academia or popularity among the public until the 20th century. The first book entitled The Silk Road was by Swedish geographer Sven Hedin in 1938, the fall of the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain in 1989 led to a surge of public and academic interest in Silk Road sites and studies in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Use of the term Silk Road is not without its detractors and he notes that traditional authors discussing East-West trade such as Marco Polo and Edward Gibbon never labelled any route as a silk one in particular. From the 2nd millennium BCE, nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Yarkand, some remnants of what was probably Chinese silk dating from 1070 BCE have been found in Ancient Egypt. The Great Oasis cities of Central Asia played a role in the effective functioning of the Silk Road trade. This style is reflected in the rectangular belt plaques made of gold and bronze, with other versions in jade. The tomb of a Scythian prince near Stuttgart, Germany, dated to the 6th century BCE, was excavated and found to have not only Greek bronzes but also Chinese silks. Scythians accompanied the Assyrian Esarhaddon on his invasion of Egypt, soghdian Scythian merchants played a vital role in later periods in the development of the Silk Road. By the time of Herodotus, the Royal Road of the Persian Empire ran some 2,857 km from the city of Susa on the Karun to the port of Smyrna on the Aegean Sea. It was maintained and protected by the Achaemenid Empire and had postal stations, by having fresh horses and riders ready at each relay, royal couriers could carry messages the entire distance in nine days, while normal travellers took about three months. The next major step in the development of the Silk Road was the expansion of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great into Central Asia and this later became a major staging point on the northern Silk Route. They continued to expand eastward, especially during the reign of Euthydemus, there are indications that he may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the first known contacts between [China and the West around 200 BCE
19.
China proper
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China proper, Inner China or the Eighteen Provinces was a term used by Western writers on the Manchu Qing dynasty to express a distinction between the core and frontier regions of China. There is no fixed extent for China proper, as administrative, cultural. One definition refers to the area of Chinese civilization, the North China Plain. It is not clear when the concept of China proper in the Western world appeared and this would also apply to Great Britain proper versus the British Empire, which would encompass vast lands overseas. The same would apply to France proper in contrast to the French Empire of the time, according to Harry Harding, the concept can date back to 1827. But as early as in 1795, William Winterbotham adopted this concept in his book, when describing the Chinese Empire under the Qing dynasty, Winterbotham divided it into three parts, China proper, Chinese Tartary, and the States Tributary to China. He adopted the opinions of Du Halde and Grosier and suspected that the name of China came from Qin dynasty and he then said, China, properly so called. Comprehends from north to south eighteen degrees, its extent from east to west being somewhat less, however, to introduce China proper, Winterbotham still used the outdated 15-province system of the Ming dynasty, which the Qing dynasty used until 1662. This 15-province system was replaced by the 18-province system between 1662 and 1667. The concept of China proper also appeared before this 1795 book and it can be found in The Gentlemans Magazine, published in 1790, and The Monthly Review, published in 1749. In the nineteenth century, the term China proper was sometimes used by Chinese officials when they were communicating in foreign languages, for instance, the Qing ambassador to Britain Zeng Jize used it in an English language article, which he published in 1887. Dulimbai Gurun is the Manchu name for China, after conquering the Ming, the Manchu Qing identified their state as China, and referred to it as Dulimbai Gurun in Manchu. When the Qing conquered Dzungaria in 1759, they proclaimed that the new land was absorbed into China in a Manchu language memorial. Some Han Chinese Ming loyalists refused to use Zhongguo to refer to areas outside the borders of the Ming Empire such as outer Mongolia, in effect refusing to acknowledge the Qing state. Today, China proper is a concept in China itself, since the current official paradigm does not contrast the core. There is no widely used term corresponding to it in the Mandarin language. Also, he asks, if the boundaries of the Qing were considered illegitimate, one way of thinking about China proper is to refer to ancient Han Chinese dynasties. The Ming Dynasty was the last Han Chinese dynasty and second-last imperial dynasty to rule China and it governed fifteen administrative entities, which included thirteen provinces and two directly-governed areas
20.
Hexi Corridor
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Hexi Corridor or Gansu Corridor refers to the historical route in Gansu province of China. The corridor is a string of oases along the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. To the south is the high and desolate Tibetan Plateau and to the north, the Gobi Desert, at the west end the route splits in three, going either north of the Tian Shan or south on either side of the Tarim Basin. At the east end are mountains around Lanzhou before one reaches the Wei River valley, cultivated wheat, originating at the Fertile Crescent, already appeared in China around 2800 BC at Donghuishan at the Hexi corridor. Several other crops are also attested at this time period, xishanping is another similar site in Gansu. According to Dodson et al. wheat entered via the Hexi Corridor into northern Gangsu around 3000 BC, although other scholars date this somewhat later. The Chinese millets, rice, as well as other crops travelled the opposite way through the Corridor, as early as the 1st millennium BCE, silk goods began appearing in Siberia, having traveled over the Northern branch of the Silk Road, including the Hexi Corridor segment. At the end of the Qin dynasty, the Yuezhi overcame previous settlers, later, Northern Xiongnu armies vanquished the Yuezhi and established dominance here during the early Han dynasty. During the Han–Xiongnu War, Han China expelled the Xiongnu from the Hexi Corridor in 121 BCE, the Han acquired a territory stretching from the Hexi Corridor to Lop Nur, thus cutting the Xiongnu off from their Qiang allies. Again, Han forces repelled a joint Xiongnu-Qiang invasion of this territory in 111 BCE. After 111 BCE, new outposts were established, four of them in the Hexi Corridor, namely Jiuquan, Zhangye, Dunhuang, from roughly 115–60 BCE, Han forces fought the Xiongnu over control of the oasis city-states in the Tarim Basin. Han was eventually victorious and established the Protectorate of the Western Regions in 60 BCE, which dealt with the regions defense and foreign affairs. During the turbulent reign of Wang Mang, Han lost control over the Tarim Basin, which was conquered by the Xiongnu in 63 CE, and used as a base to invade the Hexi Corridor. Dou Gu defeated the Xiongnu again at the Battle of Yiwulu in 73 CE, evicting them from Turpan and chasing them as far as Lake Barkol before establishing a garrison at Hami. After the new Protector General of the Western Regions Chen Mu was killed in 75 CE by allies of the Xiongnu in Karasahr and Kucha, at the Battle of the Altai Mountains in 89 CE, Dou Xian defeated the Northern Chanyu, who retreated into the Altai Mountains. The Tang dynasty fought the Tibetan Empire for control of areas in Inner, there was a long string of conflicts with Tibet over territories in the Tarim Basin between 670–692 CE. In 763 the Tibetans even captured the Tang capital of Changan for fifteen days during the An Lushan Rebellion. It was during this rebellion that the Tang withdrew its western garrisons stationed in what is now Gansu and Qinghai, hostilities between the Tang and Tibet continued until they signed a formal peace treaty in 821
21.
Endorheic
–
Such a basin may also be referred to as a closed or terminal basin or as an internal drainage system. However, in a basin, rain that falls within it does not flow out but may only leave the drainage system by evaporation. The bottom of such a basin is occupied by a salt lake or salt pan. Endorheic regions, in contrast to regions which flow to the ocean in geologically defined patterns, are closed hydrologic systems. Their surface waters drain to inland terminal locations where the water evaporates or seeps into the ground, endorheic water bodies include some of the largest lakes in the world, such as the Aral Sea and the Caspian Sea, the worlds largest saline inland sea. Most endorheic basins are arid, although there are notable exceptions, such as the Valley of Mexico, the Lake Tahoe region. Endorheic basins can be massively and rapidly affected by change and excessive water removal. An exorheic lake naturally remains at a level, so water flow into the lake may be many times more than is needed to maintain its present size. In contrast, an endorheic basin does not have enough inflow that it overflows to the ocean, endorheic lakes are bodies of water that do not flow into the sea. Most of the water falling on Earth finds its way to the oceans through a network of rivers, lakes, however, there is a class of water bodies that are located in closed or endorheic watersheds where the topography prevents their drainage to the oceans. These endorheic watersheds are often called terminal lakes or sink lakes, endorheic lakes are usually in the interior of a landmass, far from an ocean in areas of relatively low rainfall. Their watersheds are often confined by natural geologic land formations such as a mountain range, the inland water flows into dry watersheds where the water evaporates, leaving a high concentration of minerals and other inflow erosion products. Over time this input of erosion products can cause the lake to become relatively saline. Endorheic regions can occur in any climate but are most commonly found in desert locations, the Black Sea was likely such a lake, having once been an independent hydrological system before the Mediterranean Sea broke through the terrain separating the two. Lake Bonneville was another such lake, overflowing its basin in the Bonneville flood, malheur/Harney Lake in Oregon is normally cut off from drainage to the ocean, but has an outflow channel to the Malheur River that is normally dry, but flows in years of peak precipitation. Examples of relatively humid regions in endorheic basins often exist at high elevation and these regions tend to be marshy and are subject to substantial flooding in wet years. The area containing Mexico City is one case, with annual precipitation of 850 mm. Endorheic regions tend to be far inland with their boundaries defined by mountains or other features that block their access to oceans
22.
Altun Shan Nature Reserve
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It surrounds the Kumkol Basin, an endorheic basin in the western third of the Altyn-Tagh mountains. The reserve is referred to as the Arjin Mountains Nature Reserve. The reserve covers the portions of Qiemo County and Ruoqiang County of Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang. The Altun Shan Reserve is a triangular area on the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert. The reserve occupies the V-shaped region between the slopes of the Altun Shan range on the north and the northern slopes of the Kulun mountain range on the south. The eastern third of the reserve is the Komkul Basin, a plateau at an altitude of 4,500 meters. The reserve measures about 800 km west-east, and 200 km north-south, there are no permanent towns or roads in the area. There are three lakes in the Kumkol basin of the reserve, Lake Ayakum, Lake Aqqikkal. The northernmost, Lake Ayakum, is at an altitude of 12,685 feet and has an area of 283 sqmi, to the west of Lake Ayakum is Lake Aqqikkal, at an altitude of 13,940 ft, and which is 16 miles across. Because of its altitude and arid location thousands of kilometers from any ocean and in the rain shadow of the Himalayas and other mountain. This climate is characterized by hot, dry summers, and very cold, at the highest elevations, the climate is a Polar climate with cooler summers but still cold and dry in the winter. Most of the reserve is in the North Tibetan Plateau-Kunlun Mountains alpine desert ecoregion, a characterized by extreme aridity, high winds. The northeast of the reserve around Lake Ayakum is in the Qaidam Basin semi-desert, temperatures reach an average high of 56.5 °F in August, and average lows of −18.6 °F in January. There is little to no precipitation in most years, but some frost cover, the reserve provides space outside of human development for some of the largest herds of hoofed in Asia, the vulnerable Tibetan wild yak, wild ass, and Tibetan antelope. The area is also an important habitat for the endangered Kozlovs Pika, there are also small populations of dholes. Access is restricted, and high permit fees are required to enter, the soil is fragile and there are no permanent roads. List of protected areas of China Map of Aerjinshan Reserve Boundaries, GlobalSpecies. org Map of Aerjinshan Reserve Boundaries, ProtectedPlanet. net
23.
Qaidam Basin
–
Qaidam Basin, also spelled Tsaidam is an hyperarid basin that occupies a large part of the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province, western China. The basin covers an area of approximately 120,000 km2, one fourth of which is covered by saline lakes, by one count, there are 27 such lakes in the basin. Around 35,000 square kilometers, or one third of the basin is desert, the Qaidam Basin forms a sort of shelf on the northeast side of the Tibetan Plateau. The Tibetan Plateau is at least 14,000 feet above sea level, a low water divide separates the Qaidam Basin proper from that of Qinghai Lake to the east. Orographically, the Qaidam Basin is a low area in the northeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau. Qaidam is a basin, i. e. it is surrounded on all sides by mountain ranges. In the south, the Kunlun Mountains separate it from the central section of the Tibetan Plateau. In the northwest, the Altyn-Tagh separates the Qaidam Basin from the Kumtagh Desert of southeastern Xinjiang, the basins large mineral deposits caused a great deal of investment interest from 2005. It has reserves of asbestos, borax, gypsum, oil and natural gas, Qaidam is also home to the Qarhan Lake, which contains sixty billion tons of salt. There are 22 oilfields, with estimated reserves of 225 million tons, the Xining-Golmud rail line, which crossed the eastern part of the Qaidam Basin in the early 1980s, is an essential transportation link for accessing the regions mineral resources. As of 2012, additional lines are under construction. The construction of the Golmud–Dunhuang Railway started in October 2012, it is expected to be completed within 5 years, in the early 2012, Zangge Potash Co Ltd started the construction of a 25-km private railway from the Chaerhan station on the Qinghai–Tibet Railway to their facilities nearby. As of the late 2013, preliminary planning is conducted for the Korla-Golmud Railway, peoples Daily on Qaidam Columbia Encyclopedia on Qaidam Nasa - Qaidam Basin, China
24.
Kumtagh Desert
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The Kumtag Desert, is an arid landform in northwestern China, which was proclaimed as a national park in the year 2002. The oval Tarim Basin with its central Taklamakan Desert is bounded on the north, west, on the east side the Kumtag is an unbroken plain about 100 miles from north to south that runs from the Taklamakan to Gansu and Mongolia. Many modern maps do not show a Kumtag in this sense which implies that the usage may be out of date, the Kumtag Desert is a section of the Taklamakan Desert which lies east-southeast of the Desert of Lop. It is on the side of the Kara-koshun and reaches north-eastwards as far as the vicinity of the town of Sa-chow. It is bordered by Dunhuang in the east, Tian Shan in the north and its southern rim is marked by a labyrinth of hills, dotted in groups and irregular clusters, worn down as it were to mere fragments of their former skeletal structure. Between these and the Altyn-Tagh, intervenes a broad latitudinal valley, beside these scrubby desert plants of the usual character maintain a precarious existence. Water reaching them in some instances at intervals of years only and this part of the desert has a general slope northwest towards the relative depression of the Kara-koshun. Administratively, the desert is located in the Ruoqiang County of Xinjiang and Aksai Kazakh Autonomous County and Dunhuang City of Gansu, a map published by the National Geographic Society shows a much smaller Kumtag. This is a rectangle with a northwest corner south of Lop Nor, an edge along the Altyn-Tagh. Near the northeast corner is the Jade Gate which is taken as the eastern end of the Great Wall. From space it appears as a belt of sand dunes. This is probably the 2500 square kilometer area mentioned below, the Kumtag Desert is expanding and threatening to engulf previously productive lands with its arid wasteland character. Several years prior the estimated size of the desert was 2500 square kilometres, but with recent expansion, the Kumtag Desert is continuing a process of expansion that is the result of centuries of overgrazing of this region that is beyond its carrying capacity. According to the AFP news report of November,2007, Towering sand dunes loom over the ancient Chinese city of Dunhuang. To mitigate the desertification, the town of Dunhuang has placed severe limitations on immigration, the prevailing winds in this region would appear to blow from the west and northwest during the summer, winter and autumn. Though in spring, when they certainly are more violent, they no doubt come from the northeast, both sets of phenomena lie parallel to one another, from this we may infer that the winds which prevail in the two deserts are the same. At the point where I crossed it the depression was 6 to 7 miles, wide, there was a concern that the megadunes characteristic of this area may shift, burying the railway. However, geological research indicated that the megadunes are mostly formed by solid subsoil, rather than just sand
25.
Kurla
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Kurla is a suburb of Mumbai, India. It is the headquarters of the Kurla taluka of Mumbai Suburban District, the suburb is named after the eponymous East Indian village that the suburb grew out of. It falls under Zone 5, Ward L of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, the village of Kurla came under Portuguese rule when the Treaty of Bassein was signed by Sultan Bahadur of Gujarat and the Kingdom of Portugal on 23 December 1534. In 1548, the village of Kurla and six villages were given by the Governor of Portuguese India to Antonio Pessoa as a reward for his military services. Kurla remained under Portuguese rule until the British occupied Salsette Island in 1774, the island was formally ceded to the East India Company in the 1782 Treaty of Salbai. In 1805, Kurla was connected to Sion on Bombay Island by the Sion Causeway and his Son, Mr. Ardeshir Hormasji Wadia, after whom the A. H. Wadia Road was named, paid for them a yearly Quit-rent of £358. Kurla had two mills, one of them, the Dharamsi Punjabhai, being the largest cotton spinning and weaving mill in the Bombay Presidency. The other was the Kurla Spinning and Weaving Mill, Kurla village had a population of 9,715 at that time. About half of them worked in the mills, while the rest were fishermen, husbandmen, the Holy Cross Church at Kurla, built during the Portuguese rule and rebuilt in 1848, is one of the oldest churches in Mumbai. The Mithibai Hormasji Wadia Dispensary was built by Mr. Bamanji Hormasji Wadia in 1855 and it was in charge of an assistant surgeon, and, in 1880–81, had an attendance of 7367 out-patients. The salt pans covered an area of about 66 acres and yielded a revenue of £3418. There was also a considerable manufacture of shell lime, the beginning of the twentieth century saw Kurla develop as an important centre of the mill industry. In 1910, there were reported to be mills in Kurla, engaged in the manufacturing of cotton cloth. Kurla, however, was an old textile industrial core, an outlier to the cotton mill zone. The Central Railway began its Harbour Line services from Kurla to Reay Road station on 12 December 1910 and this service was extended to Victoria Terminus in 1925. The Kurla Railway Car-shed was constructed in 1925 when electrification of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Harbour line was undertaken, the first electric train in Asia that ran between CST and Coorla on February 3,1925 was maintained at this car shed. The Salsette-Trombay Railway, also known as the Central Salsette Tramway, the 13 kilometre line, a project of the Bombay Improvement Trust run by the GIPR, ran from Trombay to Andheri via Kurla and lasted only a few years. During the late fifties and sixties, the old Kurla neighbourhood developed into an industrial zone
26.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
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Public domain
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The term public domain has two senses of meaning. Anything published is out in the domain in the sense that it is available to the public. Once published, news and information in books is in the public domain, in the sense of intellectual property, works in the public domain are those whose exclusive intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable. Examples for works not covered by copyright which are therefore in the domain, are the formulae of Newtonian physics, cooking recipes. Examples for works actively dedicated into public domain by their authors are reference implementations of algorithms, NIHs ImageJ. The term is not normally applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, as rights are country-based and vary, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another. Some rights depend on registrations on a basis, and the absence of registration in a particular country, if required. Although the term public domain did not come into use until the mid-18th century, the Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined many things that cannot be privately owned as res nullius, res communes, res publicae and res universitatis. The term res nullius was defined as not yet appropriated. The term res communes was defined as things that could be enjoyed by mankind, such as air, sunlight. The term res publicae referred to things that were shared by all citizens, when the first early copyright law was first established in Britain with the Statute of Anne in 1710, public domain did not appear. However, similar concepts were developed by British and French jurists in the eighteenth century, instead of public domain they used terms such as publici juris or propriété publique to describe works that were not covered by copyright law. The phrase fall in the domain can be traced to mid-nineteenth century France to describe the end of copyright term. In this historical context Paul Torremans describes copyright as a coral reef of private right jutting up from the ocean of the public domain. Because copyright law is different from country to country, Pamela Samuelson has described the public domain as being different sizes at different times in different countries. According to James Boyle this definition underlines common usage of the public domain and equates the public domain to public property. However, the usage of the public domain can be more granular. Such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair use rights, the materials that compose our cultural heritage must be free for all living to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival
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Geography of China
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The east and south of the country consists of fertile lowlands and foothills, and is the location of most of Chinas agricultural output and human population. The west and north of the country is dominated by sunken basins, rolling plateaus and it contains part of the highest tableland on earth, the Tibetan Plateau, and has much lower agricultural potential and population. More recently, the 18,000 km coastline has been used extensively for export-oriented trade, the Peoples Republic of China has an area of about 9,600,000 km2. The exact land area is sometimes challenged by border disputes, most notably about Taiwan, Aksai Chin, the Trans-Karakoram Tract, the area of the Peoples Republic of China is 9,596,960 km2 according to the CIAs The World Factbook. Both countries are smaller than Russia and Canada and larger than Brazil, in general, the land is high in the west and descends to the east coast. Mountains, plateaus and hills account for nearly 70 percent of the land surface. Most of the arable land and population are based in lowland plains and basins. Northeast plain Northeast of Shanhaiguan a narrow sliver of flat coastal land opens up into the vast Manchurian Plain, the plains extend north to the crown of the Chinese rooster, near where the Greater and Lesser Hinggan ranges converge. The Changbai Mountains to the east divide China from the Korean peninsula, compared with the rest of the area of China, here live the most Chinese people due to its adequate climate and topography. North plain The Taihang Mountains form the side of the triangular North China Plain. The other two sides are the Pacific coast to the east and the Yangtze River to the southwest, the vertices of this triangle are Beijing to the north, Shanghai to the southeast, and Yichang to the southwest. This alluvial plain, fed by the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, is one of the most heavily populated regions of China, the only mountains in the plain are the Taishan in Shandong and Dabie Mountains of Anhui. Beijing, m at the tip of the North China Plain, is shielded by the intersection of the Taihang. Further north are the grasslands of the Inner Mongolian Plateau. To the south are agricultural regions, traditionally home to sedentary populations, the Great Wall of China was built in the mountains across the mountains that mark the southern edge of the Inner Mongolian Plateau. The Ming-era walls run over 2,000 km east to west from Shanhaiguan on the Bohai coast to the Hexi Corridor in Gansu. South East of the Tibetan Plateau, deeply folded mountains fan out toward the Sichuan Basin, the floor of the basin has an average elevation of 500 m and is home to one of the most densely farmed and populated regions of China. The Sichuan Basin is capped in the north by the continuation of the Kunlun range, the Qinling
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Altai Mountains
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The Altai Mountains are a mountain range in Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan come together, and are where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their headwaters. The name Altai means Gold Mountain in Mongolian, alt and tai and also in its Chinese name, in Turkic languages altin means gold and dag means mountain. The proposed Altaic language family takes its name from this mountain range and their mean elevation is 1,500 to 1,750 m. The snow-line runs at 2,000 m on the side and at 2,400 m on the southern. Mountain passes across the range are few and difficult, the chief being the Ulan-daban at 2,827 m, and this region is studded with large lakes, e. g. The north western and northern slopes of the Sailughem Mountains are extremely steep, on this side lies the highest summit of the range, the double-headed Belukha, whose summits reach 4,506 and 4,440 m respectively, and give origin to several glaciers. Altaians call it Kadyn Bazhy, but is also called Uch-Sumer, the second highest peak of the range is in Mongolian part named Khüiten Peak. This massive peak reaches 4374 m, numerous spurs, striking in all directions from the Sailughem mountains, fill up the space between that range and the lowlands of Tomsk. The Katun and the Biya together form the Ob, the next valley is that of the Charysh, which has the Korgon and Tigeretsk Alps on one side and the Talitsk and Bashalatsk Alps on the other. The Altai, seen from this valley, presents the most romantic scenes, including the small but deep Kolyvan lake, farther west the valleys of the Uba, the Ulba and the Bukhtarma open south-westwards towards the Irtysh. The lower part of the first, like the valley of the Charysh, is thickly populated, in the valley of the Ulba is the Riddersk mine, at the foot of the Ivanovsk Peak. Its upper parts abound in glaciers, the best known of which is the Berel, on the northern side of the range which separates the upper Bukhtarma from the upper Katun is the Katun glacier, which after two ice-falls widens out to 700 to 900 metres. From a grotto in this glacier bursts tumultuously the Katun river, the high valleys farther north, on the same western face of the Sailughem range, are but little known, their only visitors being Kyrgyz shepherds. Those of Bashkaus, Chulyshman, and Chulcha, all three leading to the lake of Teletskoye, are inhabited by Telengit people. The shores of the lake rise almost sheer to over 1,800 m, from this lake issues the Biya, which joins the Katun at Biysk, and then meanders through the prairies of the north-west of the Altai. Farther north the Altai highlands are continued in the Kuznetsk district, which has a different geological aspect. But the Abakan River, which rises on the shoulder of the Sayan mountains. East of 94° E the range is continued by a series of mountain chains
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Tian Shan
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The Tian Shan, meaning the Mountain of Heaven or the Heavenly Mountain, is a large system of mountain ranges located in Central Asia. The highest peak in the Tian Shan is Jengish Chokusu,7,439 metres, the Chinese name for Tian Shan may have been derived from the Xiongnu word Qilian – according to Tang commentator Yan Shigu, Qilian is the Xiongnu word for sky or heaven. The Tannu-Ola mountains in Tuva has the meaning in its name. Tian Shan is sacred in Tengrism, and its second-highest peak is known as Khan Tengri which may be translated as Lord of the Spirits. Tian Shan is north and west of the Taklamakan Desert and directly north of the Tarim Basin in the region of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. In the south it links up with the Pamir Mountains and to north, Chinese cartography from the Han Dynasty to the present agrees, with the Tian Shan including the Bogda Shan and Barkol ranges. The Tian Shan are a part of the Himalayan orogenic belt and they are one of the longest mountain ranges in Central Asia and stretch some 2,800 kilometres eastward from Tashkent in Uzbekistan. The highest peak in the Tian Shan is the Victory Peak which, the Tian Shans second highest peak, Khan Tengri, straddles the Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan border and at 7,010 metres is the highest point of Kazakhstan. Mountaineers class these as the two most northerly peaks over 7,000 metres in the world, the Torugart Pass, at 3,752 metres, is located at the border between Kyrgyzstan and Chinas Xinjiang province. The forested Alatau ranges, which are at an altitude in the northern part of the Tian Shan, are inhabited by pastoral tribes that speak Turkic languages. The Tian Shan are separated from the Tibetan Plateau by the Taklimakan Desert, the major rivers rising in the Tian Shan are the Syr Darya, the Ili River and the Tarim River. The Aksu Canyon is a feature in the northwestern Tian Shan. Continuous permafrost is found in the Tian Shan starting at the elevation of about 3. One of the first Europeans to visit and the first to describe the Tian Shan in detail was the Russian explorer Peter Semenov, who did so in the 1850s. Glaciers in the Tian Shan Mountains have been shrinking and have lost 27%, or 5.4 billion tons annually. It is estimated that by 2050 half of the glaciers will have melted. The Tian Shan have a number of named ranges which are mentioned separately. In China the Tian Shan starts north of Kumul City with the U-shaped Barkol Mountains, then the Bogda Shan run from 350 to 40 kilometres east of Ürümqi
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Helan Mountains
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The Helan Mountains, frequently called Alashan Mountains in older sources, are an isolated desert mountain range forming the border of Inner Mongolias Alxa League and Ningxia. They run north-south parallel to the north-flowing Yellow River in the Ordos Loop section, the river is mostly east of the mountains, but in the north it crosses without making a significant gorge and flows on the west side. To the west is severe desert, to the east is an irrigated area with the towns of Yinchuan and Shizuishan. They are about 200 km from north to south, from 15 to 50 km wide and their highest peak is 3,556 metres. With the increasing popularity of Ningxia wines, the Chinese authorities have given approval to the development of the base of the Helan Mountains as an area suitable for wine production. Several large Chinese wine companies including Changyu and Dynasty Wine have begun development in the region of the province. Together they now own 20,000 acres of land for wine plantations, in addition, the major oil company China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation has founded a grape plantation near the Helan Mountains. The household appliance company Midea has also begun participating in Ningxias wine industry
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Tibet Plateau
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It stretches approximately 1,000 kilometres north to south and 2,500 kilometres east to west. Sometimes termed the Third Pole, the Tibetan Plateau contains the headwaters of the basins of most of the streams in surrounding regions. Its tens of thousands of glaciers and other geographical and ecological features serve as a water tower storing water, the impact of global warming on the Tibetan Plateau is of intense scientific interest. The Tibetan Plateau is surrounded by mountain ranges. In the west the curve of the rugged Karakoram range of northern Kashmir embraces the plateau, the Indus River originates in the western Tibetan Plateau in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar. The Tibetan Plateau is bounded in the north by an escarpment where the altitude drops from around 5,000 metres to 1,500 metres over a horizontal distance of less than 150 kilometres. Along the escarpment is a range of mountains, in the west the Kunlun Mountains separate the plateau from the Tarim Basin. About halfway across the Tarim the bounding range becomes the Altyn-Tagh, in the V formed by this split is the western part of the Qaidam Basin. The Altyn-Tagh ends near the Dangjin pass on the Dunhuang-Golmud road, to the west are short ranges called the Danghe, Yema, Shule, and Tulai Nanshans. The easternmost range is the Qilian Mountains, the line of mountains continues east of the plateau as the Qin Mountains which separate the Ordos Region from Sichuan. North of the runs the Gansu or Hexi Corridor which was the main silk-road route from China proper to the West. The plateau is an arid steppe interspersed with mountain ranges. Annual precipitation ranges from 100 to 300 millimetres and falls mainly as hail, the southern and eastern edges of the steppe have grasslands which can sustainably support populations of nomadic herdsmen, although frost occurs for six months of the year. Permafrost occurs over parts of the plateau. Proceeding to the north and northwest, the plateau becomes progressively higher, colder and drier, here the average altitude exceeds 5,000 metres and winter temperatures can drop to −40 °C. The geological history of the Tibetan Plateau is closely related to that of the Himalayan mountain range, the Himalayas are among the youngest mountain ranges on the planet and consist mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock. Their formation is a result of a collision or orogeny along the convergent boundary between the Indo-Australian Plate and the Eurasian Plate. The collision began in the Upper Cretaceous period about 70 million years ago, since these sediments were light, they crumpled into mountain ranges rather than sinking to the floor
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Himalayas
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The Himalayas, or Himalaya, form a mountain range in Asia separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The Himalayan range has the Earths highest peaks, including the highest, the Himalayas include over a hundred mountains exceeding 7,200 metres in elevation. By contrast, the highest peak outside Asia – Aconcagua, in the Andes – is 6,961 metres tall. The Himalayas are spread across five countries, Bhutan, India, Nepal, China, the Himalayan range is bordered on the northwest by the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, on the north by the Tibetan Plateau, and on the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Some of the major rivers, the Indus, the Ganges, and the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra, rise in the Himalayas. The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia, many Himalayan peaks are sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism. Lifted by the subduction of the Indian tectonic plate under the Eurasian Plate and its western anchor, Nanga Parbat, lies just south of the northernmost bend of Indus river. Its eastern anchor, Namcha Barwa, is just west of the bend of the Tsangpo river. The range varies in width from 400 kilometres in the west to 150 kilometres in the east, the name of the range derives from the Sanskrit Himā-laya, from himá and ā-laya. They are now known as the Himalaya Mountains, usually shortened to the Himalayas, formerly, they were described in the singular as the Himalaya. This was also previously transcribed Himmaleh, as in Emily Dickinsons poetry and Henry David Thoreaus essays. The mountains are known as the Himālaya in Nepali and Hindi, the Himalaya or The Land of Snow in Tibetan, the Hamaleh Mountain Range in Urdu, the flora and fauna of the Himalayas vary with climate, rainfall, altitude, and soils. The climate ranges from tropical at the base of the mountains to permanent ice, the amount of yearly rainfall increases from west to east along the southern front of the range. This diversity of altitude, rainfall and soil conditions combined with the high snow line supports a variety of distinct plant. The extremes of high altitude combined with extreme cold favor extremophile organisms, the unique floral and faunal wealth of the Himalayas is undergoing structural and compositional changes due to climate change. The increase in temperature is shifting various species to higher elevations, the oak forest is being invaded by pine forests in the Garhwal Himalayan region. There are reports of early flowering and fruiting in some species, especially rhododendron, apple. The highest known tree species in the Himalayas is Juniperus tibetica located at 4,900 metres in Southeastern Tibet, the Himalayan range is one of the youngest mountain ranges on the planet and consists mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock
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Pamir Mountains
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The Pamir Mountains, or the Pamirs, are a mountain range in Central Asia at the junction of the Himalayas with the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and Hindu Raj ranges. They are among the world’s highest mountains, the precise extent of the Pamir Mountains is debatable. They lie mostly in Gorno-Badakhshan province of Tajikistan, to the north they join the Tian Shan mountains along the Alay Valley of Kyrgyzstan. To the south border the Hindu Kush mountains along Afghanistans Wakhan Corridor. Since Victorian times, they have known as the Roof of the World. The name Pamir is used commonly in Modern Chinese and loaned as simplified Chinese, 帕米尔, traditional Chinese, 帕米爾, pinyin. The three highest mountains in the Pamirs core are Ismoil Somoni Peak,7,495 m, Ibn Sina Peak,7,134 m, in the Eastern Pamirs, Chinas Kongur Tagh is the highest at 7,649 m. There are many glaciers in the Pamir Mountains, including the 77 km long Fedchenko Glacier, the longest in the former USSR, covered in snow throughout the year, the Pamirs have long and bitterly cold winters, and short, cool summers. Annual precipitation is about 130 mm, which supports grasslands but few trees, the East-Pamir, in the centre of which the massifs of Mustagh Ata and Kongur Tagh are situated, shows from the W-margin of the Tarim Basin an East-West extension of c.200 km. Its North-South extension from King Ata Tagh up to the North-West Kunlun foothills amounts to c.170 km. From this glacier area an outlet glacier has flowed down to the north-east through the Gez valley up to c.1850 m asl and this outlet glacier received inflow from the Kaiayayilak glacier from the Kongur-north-flank. From the north-adjacent Kara Bak Tor -massif the Oytag valley glacier in the same exposition flowed also down up to c.1850 m asl. At glacial times the glacier snowline as altitude limit between glacier nourishing area and ablation zone, was lowered about 820 to 1250 altitude metres against today. Under the condition of comparable proportions of precipitation there results from this a depression of temperature of at least 5 to 7.5 °C. Coal is mined in the west, though sheep herding in upper meadowlands are the source of income for the region. This section is based on the book by R. Middleton, about 138 BC Zhang Qian reached the Fergana Valley northwest of the Pamirs. Ptolemy vaguely describes a route through the area. From about 600 AD, Buddhist pilgrims travelled on both sides of the Pamirs to reach India from China, in 747 a Tang army was on the Wakhan River
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Karakoram
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The Karakoram, or Karakorum is a large mountain range spanning the borders of Pakistan, India, and China, with the northwest extremity of the range extending to Afghanistan and Tajikistan. It is located in the regions of Gilgit–Baltistan, Ladakh, and southern Xinjiang, a part of the complex of ranges from the Hindu Kush to the Himalayan Range, it is one of the Greater Ranges of Asia. The Karakoram is home to the four most closely located peaks over 8000m in height on earth, K2, the range is about 500 km in length, and is the most heavily glaciated part of the world outside the polar regions. The Siachen Glacier at 76 kilometres and the Biafo Glacier at 63 kilometres rank as the worlds second, the Karakoram is bounded on the northeast by the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, and on the north by the Pamir Mountains. Karakoram is a Turkic term meaning black gravel, the name was first applied by local traders to the Karakoram Pass. Due to its altitude and ruggedness, the Karakoram is much less inhabited parts of the Himalayas further east. European explorers first visited early in the 19th century, followed by British surveyors starting in 1856, the Muztagh Pass was crossed in 1887 by the expedition of Colonel Francis Younghusband and the valleys above the Hunza River were explored by General Sir George K. Cockerill in 1892. Explorations in the 1910s and 1920s established most of the geography of the region, the name Karakoram was used in the early 20th century, for example by Kenneth Mason, for the range now known as the Baltoro Muztagh. The term is now used to refer to the range from the Batura Muztagh above Hunza in the west to the Saser Muztagh in the bend of the Shyok River in the east. Floral surveys were carried out in the Shyok River catchment and from Panamik to Turtuk village by Chandra Prakash Kala during 1999 and 2000, the Karakoram is in one of the worlds most geologically active areas, at the plate boundary between the Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate. A significant part, 28-50% of the Karakoram Range is glaciated, compared to the Himalaya, mountain glaciers may serve as an indicator of climate change, advancing and receding with long-term changes in temperature and precipitation. Karakoram glaciers are mostly stagnating or enlarging, because, unlike in the Himalayas, where there is no such insulation, the rate of retreat is high. In the last ice age, a series of glaciers stretched from western Tibet to Nanga Parbat. To the south, the Indus glacier was the valley glacier. In the north, the Karakoram glaciers joined those from the Kunlun Mountains, while the current valley glaciers in the Karakoram reach a maximum length of 76 kilometres, several of the ice-age valley glacier branches and main valley glaciers, had lengths up to 700 kilometres. During the Ice age, the snowline was about 1,300 metres lower than today. Baltistan has more than 100 mountain peaks exceeding 6,100 metres height from sea level. K1, Masherbrum K2 K3, Gasherbrum IV K3a, Gasherbrum III K4, Gasherbrum II K5, Gasherbrum I K6, Baltistan Peak K7,6,934 m peak near Charakusa Valley K9, approx
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Hoh Xil
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Hoh Xil or Kekexili, is an isolated region in the northwestern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China. It is Chinas least and the worlds third-least populated area, the southeastern part of the Hoh Xil, drained by the Chumar River, is one of the major headwater sources of the Yangtze River. The rest of the region is endorheic, with drainage to numerous isolated lakes,45,000 square kilometres of the Hoh Xil region, at an average elevation of 4,600 metres, were designated a national nature reserve in 1995. Surrounding Unnamed volcanic field contains a number of late-Cenozoic volcanoes, several Hawaiian-style volcanoes are present in this area. Bamaoqiongzong covers an area of 300 km2 and contains a perfectly preserved edifice NE of the summit, the Bamaoqiongzong area contains peralkaline phonolitic and foiditic rocks. Yongbohu contains five dacitic, trachyandesitic and andesitic vents, qiangbaqian covers a broad area along the southern border of the Kunlun mountain range. A cone in the Kekexili caldera, once thought to be observed in eruption on a photo in 1973, is now considered not to have been historically active. The abundant plateau pika, a burrowing rodent, is the main food of the regions brown bears. The hitherto little-known region, as well the struggling Tibetan antelope, or chiru, became household names in China upon the release of the film Kekexili, the Qingzang Railway and China National Highway 109 run along the eastern boundary of the reserve. The Fenghuoshan Tunnel, presently the worlds highest railway tunnel, was constructed in the area, Geography of Tibet Geography of China Save the Chiru Kekexili on enorth. com A Journey to Hoh Xil--A Diary of an Environmental Volunteer
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Amne Machin
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Amne Machin or Anyi Machen is the highest peak of a mountain range of the same name in the province of Qinghai in west-central China. It is revered in Tibetan Buddhism as the home of the indigenous deity of Amdo. The entire Amne Machin range is an extension of the Kunlun Mountains. The Amne Machin range runs in the general northwest-to-southeast direction in eastern Qinghai, the existence of the ridge results in one of the great bends of the Yellow River. The river first flows for several hundreds of kilometers toward the east and southeast, in so doing it crosses the entire length of Golog Prefecture, and reaches the borders of Gansu and Sichuan. The Amne Machin Peak is located in Maqên County of Golog Prefecture and its elevation is estimated to 6,282 metres. It is ranked number 23 in height among the peaks of China. A part of the range around its highest peak has been declared a section of the Sanjiangyuan National Nature Reserve, the mountain was known to the ancient Chinese as Mount Jishi. Pereira, who saw Amne Machin from about 70 miles away, thought its height must be at least 25,000 feet, however, the massif remained unclimbed until 1960. The Amne Machin mountains had been overflown by a few American pilots who overestimated the elevation to 30,000 feet, for a while, the mountains were considered as a possible place for a peak higher than Mount Everest. The dome in the north is the highest part, but it is not so imposing as the pyramid at the southern end. By 1980 Anyi Machen had been resurveyed at 6,282 metres, in 1960, a Chinese expedition climbed the mountain, but it was demonstrated in 1980 that this expedition climbed Amne Machin II,7 km SSE from the highest summit. In 1981, Amne Machin I was reached near-simultaneously by three groups, each of which had led to believe they were the first and only ones to obtain a permit from the Chinese government. A Japanese expedition approached the summit from the south and put Giichiro Watanabe, Yoshio Yamamoto and Katsumi Miyake on top on May 22,1981, and five other expedition members 3 days later. Within three weeks, the American climbers Galen Rowell, Harold Knutsen and Kim Schmitz made an Alpine-style ascent over the East ridge of the NE summit to reach the summit on June 9. They did not see any evidence of an earlier ascent, the very next day Siegfried Hupfauer, Hans Gaschbauer, Franz Lämmerhofer, Gerhard Schmatz and Peter Vogler of an Austro-German expedition reached the summit as well. They had followed the Japanese route and the 3000 feet of fixed rope they encountered en route convinced them that the Japanese had been the first to summit, peking to Lhasa The Geographical Journal, Vol.64, No. The elevation estimate is on p.104, lamaist Sites of the Amny Machen Region, in, Andreas Gruschke, The Cultural Monuments of Tibet’s Outer Provinces, Amdo - Volume 1
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Tanggula Mountains
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The Tanggula, Tangla, Tanglha, or Dangla Mountains are a mountain range in the central part of the Tibetan Plateau in Tibet. The Tanggula is the source of the Ulan Moron and Dangqu Rivers, the range thus functions as a dividing range between the basin of the Yangtze River in the north and the endorheic basins of north-eastern Tibet in the south. The elevations of the main ridge average more than 5,000 m, the Yangtze River originates in this mountain range and Peak Geladandong is the tallest peak in the range. The Qinghai-Tibet Highway and the Qinghai-Tibet Railway cross the Tanggula Mountains at Tanggula Mountain Pass and this is the highest point of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, and the highest point of any railway in the world, at 5,072 metres above sea level. On account of the snow and occasional road accidents, highway closures, the mountains lie within the Tibetan Plateau alpine shrub and meadows ecoregion
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Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains
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The Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains are a 700-kilometre long mountain range located in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. One source says the Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains is about 600 miles in length and its highest point is 23,250 feet located 60 miles to the northwest of Lhasa. The range is parallel to the Himalayas and north of the Brahmaputra, another source says the Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains extend 460 miles from Nyêmo County in the west to Ranwu County in the east. Its highest peak is Mount Nyenchen Tanglha at 7,162 metres, the southern side of the Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains is precipitous, and falls by around 2,000 metres, while the northern side is fairly level and descends about 1,000 metres. Most of the mountains are below 6,500 metres and they contain 7080 glaciers covering an area of 10,700 square kilometres. The Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains have a latitude of 30°30N and a longitude between 90°E and 97°E. Together with the Mount Kailash range located further west, it forms the Transhimalaya which runs parallel to the Himalayas north of the Yarlung Tsangpo River. The range is divided into two parts, the West and East Nyenchen Tanglha, with a division at the 5,432 metres high Tro La Pass near Lhari Town. The Drukla Chu rises in the Nyenchen Tanglha Mountains, where it is called the Song Chu, the combined river runs about 100 kilometres southeast to the Yarlung Tsangpo. The West Nyenchen Tanglha lies to the southeast of Namtso, the range trends to the northeast, and forms part of the northern watershed of the Yarlung Tsangpo River. The northeastern section is drained by the Lhasa River, the largest tributary of the Yarlung Tsangpo, West Nyenchen Tanglha separates the basins of the Yarlung Tsangpo in the south from the endorheic basins of the Changtang in the north. East Nyenchen Tanglha, located in Nagqu Prefecture, Chamdo and Nyingchi Prefecture, large areas of the eastern sector are snow-covered. Two-thirds of the glaciers, accounting for five-sixths of the area and this section receives the southwest monsoons, which enter the Tibetan plateau at the Yarlung Zanbo rivers Grand Bend. The air is forced up by the terrain, and yields the highest rainfall and moistest air of the plateau, there are thirty-two glaciers that are over 10 kilometres long. Kyagquen Glacier is the largest, covering 207 square kilometres and extending for 35.3 kilometres, the end of the Qiaqing glacial tongue is at 2,530 metres in an area of mountain forests. The glacier foot is at 30. 3833°N94. 8329°E /30.3833,94.8329, according to the Langzhou Glaciers Research Institute, there are a total of 2,905 glaciers in the range covering a total area of 5,898 square kilometres. Most of the peaks in East Nyenchen Tanglha, sometimes called the Alps of Tibet, are unclimbed, the summit was finally reached on 2 October 2002 by Mark Newcomb and Carlos Buhler. Articles by Area – China, Tibet
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Altyn-Tagh". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
