Changtang

English

Alternative forms

• Chang Tang
• Changthang
• Qangtang

Etymology

From Tibetan བྱང་ཐང (byang thang).

Proper noun

Changtang

1. A part of the high altitude Tibetan Plateau in western and northern Tibet extending into southeastern Ladakh, India.
   • 1853 November 22, H. Strachey, Physical Geography of Western Tibet‎^[1], Royal Geographical Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 22:

     In elevation the lowest limit of Changtang may be reckoned about 13,800 feet, and the highest of Rong 14,300, the mean line of demarcation being 14,000 feet.

   • 2002, Michel Peissel, Tibet: The Secret Continent‎^[2], Thomas Dunne Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 33:

     Our path across the trackless Changtang was littered with the impressive skulls and horns of wild yaks slaughtered by the modern-day poachers of Tibet. Yielding close to a tonne of meat, it pays to shoot a wild yak — provided that you own a truck to take your kill to the closest village or town hundreds of miles away. Unfortunately, the number of truck-owning Tibetan and Chinese poachers in certain parts of the Changtang is increasing rapidly.

   • 2005, Nick Middleton, Extremes Along the Silk Road: Adventures off the World's Oldest Superhighway‎^[3], John Murray, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 131:

     We had climbed, almost imperceptibly, on to the Changtang, the name for the northern part of the Tibetan plateau, one of the most remote and least known regions of the world, as well as being one of the highest. Remote and unknown to outsiders, that is: the Changtang is also home to about half a million nomadic herders, or drokba.

   • 2021 December 3, Liesl Schillinger, quoting Sylvain Tesson, “Books That Satisfy Your Yearning for Far-Off Places”, in The New York Times‎^[4], →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 03 December 2021, Travel‎^[5]:

     Observing Lake Yaniugol, rising high in the steppe, he writes: “It settled like a sacred host of jade upon the sand. It appeared to us at twilight, in the hollow of a ledge, flanked to the north by the sharp incisors of the Kunlun peaks soaring to 6,000 meters, and to the south by the Changtang. Behind this shimmering disk, the secret plateau.”

Translations

part of Tibetan Plateau

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 羌塘 (zh) (Qiāngtáng)

• Tibetan: བྱང་ཐང (byang thang)

Further reading

• Saul B. Cohen, editor (1998), “Qangtang Plateau or Zangbei Plateau”, in The Columbia Gazetteer of the World‎^[6], volume 3, New York: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 2544, column 1