60 Fun Facts About Himalayas

The Himalayas separate the plains of the Indian subcontinent from which high region to the north?

More than 100 of its peaks exceed 7,200 metres.

What does the Sanskrit name Himalaya mean?

It combines hima, meaning frost or cold, with alaya, meaning dwelling.

Which five countries do the Himalayas span?

Sovereignty over the Kashmir section is disputed among India, Pakistan and China.

Roughly how long is the Himalayan arc from west to east?

It varies in width from 350 km in the west to about 150 km in the east.

Roughly how many people live in the Himalayas themselves?

The rivers rising nearby drain basins home to some 600 million.

The collision of which two tectonic plates raised the Himalayas?

The upper Indian crust folded into nappes while the lower crust slid under Eurasia.

At what speed did India travel northward toward Asia before the collision, faster than any modern plate?

It slowed to about 5 cm a year after impact but still pushed 2,000 km into Asia.

By roughly how much do the Himalayas still rise each year?

The Indian plate keeps moving north at 67 mm a year, making the region seismically active.

Which peak forms the eastern anchor of the Himalayas, inside the great bend of the Tsangpo river?

Its western counterpart stands beside the northernmost bend of the Indus.

Which mountain range to the northwest, home to K2, is generally considered separate from the Himalayas?

The Hindu Kush also borders the Himalayas on the northwest.

What are the four parallel ranges of the Himalayas, from south to north?

The Great Himalaya is the highest and central range.

Which river gorge, between Dhaulagiri and Annapurna, splits the Himalayas into western and eastern sections?

The Kora La pass at its head is the lowest point on the ridgeline between Everest and K2.

Which sub-range contains Everest, Lhotse, Makalu and Cho Oyu?

The Khumbu trekking region lies on its south-western approaches.

The eastern side of Kangchenjunga, the world's third-highest mountain, lies in which Indian state?

The former kingdom lies on the main route from India to Lhasa over the Nathu La pass.

Why did the 1955 first ascensionists of Kangchenjunga stop just short of the true summit?

Joe Brown and George Band honoured the pledge made to the Chogyal, Tashi Namgyal.

What does the name Kangchenjunga mean in Tibetan?

The Schlagintweit brothers recorded the explanation in the 19th century.

Which mountain is a strong candidate for the highest unclimbed peak in the world?

It is the highest mountain in Bhutan, where climbing high peaks is forbidden.

Which sacred mountain is revered by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Bonpo alike?

It stands in the Kailash Ranges just across Lake Manasarovar from Gurla Mandhata.

What is the largest city in the Himalayas?

It lies south of the 8,000-metre peak of Manaslu.

Which hill station in Himachal Pradesh served as the summer capital of the British Raj?

Nearby Dharamsala is home to the Tibetan government in exile.

Which glacier in Uttarakhand is the source of the holy river Ganges?

Yamunotri, source of the Yamuna, lies nearby.

Roughly how many glaciers does the Himalayan range contain?

Together they store about 12,000 cubic kilometres of fresh water.

The Himalayas hold more ice than anywhere but Antarctica and the Arctic, earning what nickname?

The region's glaciers store some 12,000 cubic kilometres of fresh water.

At roughly what altitude is the Himalayan permanent snow line, among the highest in the world?

Equatorial mountains in New Guinea and Colombia have snow lines about 900 m lower.

By 2020, studies measured what decrease in Himalayan glacial coverage over 40 to 50 years?

Mass loss has accelerated since 1975, from about 5-13 to 16-24 gigatonnes a year.

Which large lake straddles the India-China border at the far western end of Tibet?

It covers about 700 square kilometres.

Which Nepalese glacial lake, at 4,580 m, is rated the most dangerous for an outburst flood?

It has grown considerably over 50 years as its glacier melts.

The Himalayan rivers drain into which two great systems?

The Ganges and Brahmaputra meet in Bangladesh and reach the sea through the Sundarbans delta.

What is the source river of the Brahmaputra, which flows along the suture zone north of the Himalayas?

It marks the eastern limit of the range as it bends around Namcha Barwa.

Which seasonal wind brings the Himalayas most of their rain between June and September?

Trekking is confined to the months before and after it.

Which Nepalese region, sheltered by the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri massifs, gets only about 300 mm of rain a year?

Pokhara, on the other side of the same massifs, receives about 3,900 mm.

The rain shadow of the Himalayas is believed to help create which Central Asian deserts?

The range also blocks frigid winds, keeping South Asia far warmer than other regions at its latitude.

Which elusive cat is the main predator at high altitude in the Himalayas?

Its favourite prey is the bharal, or Himalayan blue sheep.

Which sound can the Himalayas' great high-altitude cat not make, despite being in the genus Panthera?

Its vocal folds are only 9 mm long and offer little resistance to airflow.

Which endemic Himalayan animal, hunted for its scent gland, became rare and endangered?

Other near-endemic herbivores include the tahr, takin, serow and goral.

Which animal feeds in the bamboo understorey of the eastern Himalayan forests?

Lower down, the endangered Gee's golden langur lives in the foothills.

What is the highest known tree species in the Himalayas, found at 4,900 m in southeastern Tibet?

Warming is pushing pine into the oak forests of Garhwal.

What is the mythical hairy humanoid said to inhabit the Himalayas called in Western popular culture?

Folklorists trace the legend to Sherpa lore and misidentified bears or yaks.

The yeti's Western nickname was coined in 1921 during which expedition?

Leader Charles Howard-Bury thought the footprints he saw were made by a loping grey wolf.

From which Tibetan words is the word Yeti thought to derive?

Which suggests the legend may have started with sightings of bears.

Which school of Tibetan Buddhism do the Sherpa people follow?

It is the oldest of the four major schools, founded by Padmasambhava in the eighth century.

Which Sherpa mountaineer became one of the first two people to reach the summit of Everest in 1953?

Most Sherpas live in the Solukhumbu district of eastern Nepal.

How many eight-thousanders, peaks over 8,000 metres, are recognised by the UIAA?

All lie in the Himalayas and Karakoram, with summits in the death zone.

Who led the French expedition that made the first ascent of an eight-thousander, Annapurna, in 1950?

For decades it had the highest fatality-to-summit rate of the principal 8,000-metre peaks.

Which was the last of the eight-thousanders to receive a first ascent, in 1964?

All fourteen were first climbed in a fifteen-year window from 1950 to 1964.

Who first climbed all fourteen eight-thousanders, finishing in 1986 without bottled oxygen?

Edurne Pasaban became the first woman to complete the set in 2010.

Which peak, the ninth highest on Earth, is nicknamed the Killer Mountain?

Its Rupal Face rises 4,600 metres above its base, often called the highest mountain face in the world.

Which Austrian made the first ascent of Nanga Parbat in 1953, going alone for the final 1,300 metres?

He climbed via the Rakhiot Flank after his companions turned back.

Dhaulagiri, the highest mountain lying entirely within one country, ranks where among the world's peaks?

It was first climbed in 1960 by a Swiss-Austrian-Nepali expedition.

Why is Lhotse, the fourth-highest mountain, the least prominent of the eight-thousanders?

Its standard route follows Everest's South Col route as far as the Yellow Band.

In Hindu tradition the Himalayas are personified as Himavat, father of which goddess?

He is also considered the father of Ganga, the river Ganges personified.

Which Bhutanese cliffside monastery is held to be where Padmasambhava founded Buddhism in Bhutan?

It is popularly known as the Tiger's Nest.

How much do temperatures in the Himalayas typically cool for every 300 metres of altitude gained?

Summits are so large that many create their own weather.

Who set the 2023 speed record of 92 days for climbing all fourteen eight-thousanders?

They used supplementary oxygen; Kim Chang-ho's oxygen-free record took 7 years and 310 days.

Which body of water in Nepal's remote west is the country's largest?

Western Nepal lacks major high mountains, though the Karnali River cuts through its centre.

Which Himalayan town in Himachal Pradesh is the centre of the Tibetan government in exile?

The area also marks the start of the Punjab Himalaya, where the Sutlej cuts through the range.

Which ancient sea was closed by the collision of India with Eurasia that raised the Himalayas?

The suture zone marking the weld is called the Indus-Yarlung suture zone, north of the range.

Roughly how many Buddhist monasteries were there in Tibet, including the residence of the Dalai Lama?

Bhutan, Sikkim and Ladakh are also dotted with numerous monasteries.

Roughly how much monsoon-season rain does Darjeeling get, compared with 975 mm at Shimla?

The southwest monsoon weakens as it moves westward along the range.

Which endemic wild sheep, the 'Himalayan blue sheep', is a chief prey of the snow leopard?

It grazes the alpine pastures and rocky terrain at high altitude.