40 Fun Facts About Tibetan Plateau

Ringed by ranges holding Earth's two highest summits, the Tibetan Plateau goes by which nickname?

The Roof of the World is the largest plateau on Earth as well as the highest, stretching about 2,500 km from east to west.

On the Tibetan Plateau, herders breed the hardy dzo by crossing cattle with which shaggy animal?

Yak crossed with cattle produces hybrid vigour, so a dzo grows larger and stronger than either parent. Only the females are fertile.

Which landmass, drifting north from Gondwana, collided with Asia and pushed up the Tibetan Plateau?

India is still being driven beneath Asia, so the plateau keeps rising by roughly 5 mm a year, though erosion wears away some of the gain.

Tsampa, the staple flour of Tibetan Plateau herders, is usually ground from which roasted grain?

Barley is roasted before it is milled, so tsampa needs no cooking: people simply knead it into a dumpling with a little tea.

Which big cat of the Tibetan Plateau wraps its thick tail around its face like a blanket to sleep?

Snow leopard tails store fat and can grow about a metre long. Despite its size, this cat cannot roar.

Carriages on the world's highest railway, over the Tibetan Plateau, are built to pump in extra what?

Oxygen outlets sit beside every seat, because the line climbs above 5,000 metres, where the air is far thinner than at sea level.

Which peak on the Tibetan Plateau's rim, above Rongbuk Monastery, do Tibetans call Qomolangma?

Everest has a Tibetan name that translates as Holy Mother. Expeditions climbing from the north pitch base camp a few kilometres from the monastery.

In a Tibetan Plateau sky burial, used where graves are hard to dig, the dead go to which birds?

Vultures do the work because the hard, rocky ground resists digging and the treeless land offers too little wood for cremation.

Ice 15,000 years old, drilled from a Tibetan Plateau glacier, held dozens of unknown types of what?

Viruses of 33 kinds were recovered from the Guliya ice cores, and 28 of them were new to science. They had probably infected plants or microbes.

Families on the Tibetan Plateau traditionally drink tea blended with salt and which rich ingredient?

Butter tea is drunk in sips, and by custom the host refills the bowl to the brim after each one, so a guest's bowl is never empty.

Which nickname do scientists give the Tibetan Plateau for its tens of thousands of glaciers?

The Third Pole label fits because the plateau's ice fields hold the largest reserve of fresh water outside the Arctic and Antarctic.

Heating and cooling of the Tibetan Plateau drives Earth's strongest example of which weather system?

Monsoon winds blow towards land that warms faster than the sea, and the high plateau heats so strongly in summer that moist ocean air is drawn far inland.

Which river rises on the Tibetan Plateau and runs through Laos and Cambodia to its delta in Vietnam?

Mekong headwaters lie in a reserve whose name means source of three rivers, because two more of Asia's longest rivers begin there too.

A jawbone a monk found in a Tibetan Plateau cave showed which archaic humans once lived there?

Denisovans were known only from a single Siberian cave until 2019, when proteins preserved in one of the jaw's teeth identified it.

Yartsa gunbu, a prized fungus gathered on the Tibetan Plateau, grows out of the body of which host?

A caterpillar of the ghost moth is infected underground, mummified, and sprouts a stalk from its head. Top grades had reached $50,000 a pound by 2012.

Which 1,000-room Tibetan Plateau palace above Lhasa was the Dalai Lamas' winter home until 1959?

Potala rises 13 storeys from its hilltop and stands more than 300 metres above the valley floor.

The Hexi Corridor, below the Tibetan Plateau's northern mountains, carried which trade route west?

Silk Road caravans funnelled through this narrow passage between the Qilian Mountains and the Gobi Desert on their way out of China.

The Yarlung Tsangpo leaves the Tibetan Plateau through a record-deep canyon to become which river?

Brahmaputra is the name it takes in Assam, after a horseshoe bend around the peak Namcha Barwa has cut the deepest canyon in the world.

Because its glaciers feed so many great rivers, the Tibetan Plateau is called Asia's what?

Water tower is the usual image: the plateau's ice stores water and steadies the flow of rivers that run to much of Asia.

What is the approximate average elevation of the Tibetan Plateau, the highest plateau on Earth?

4,500 metres is only the average: the plateau's remote north-west sits above 5,000 metres, where winter temperatures often fall below −35 °C.

Heat exchangers along the Tibetan Plateau's railway stop trains melting what beneath the track?

Permafrost underlies about 550 km of the line, and the warmth of a passing train is enough to thaw it, so parts of the route are cooled with ammonia.

Shahtoosh, a wool so fine a shawl slips through a ring, comes from which Tibetan Plateau animal?

Antelope known as chiru grow the underfur, and because they cannot be shorn, three to five are killed to make a single scarf.

The kiang, seen in herds of several hundred on the Tibetan Plateau, is the largest wild what?

Ass herds of that size are temporary gatherings of young males or of mothers with foals. A kiang stands about 140 cm at the shoulder.

Which burrowing relative of the rabbit is a keystone species of the Tibetan Plateau's grasslands?

Pika burrows recycle nutrients in the soil and the animals feed foxes, weasels, falcons and owls, yet they have been widely poisoned as pests.

Which bird breeds on Tibetan Plateau lakes and migrates over the Himalayas at extreme heights?

Bar-headed goose flocks cross the range from near sea level in as little as seven hours without stopping, and have been heard above Mount Makalu.

Which unclimbed Tibetan Plateau peak, sacred to four religions, do pilgrims circle on foot?

Kailash is holy to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and followers of Bon, and no successful ascent has ever been recorded. Climbing it is now prohibited.

A rare snake found above 4,000 metres on the Tibetan Plateau survives the cold by living near what?

Hot springs give Bailey's snake its warmth, and geothermal power projects that tap the same heat have been destroying its habitat.

Hand and foot prints left in Tibetan Plateau stone about 200,000 years ago were apparently whose?

Children, probably two of them, pressed the prints into soft travertine that later hardened, and they are the oldest evidence of people on the high plateau.

Which South American plateau is the most extensive high plateau on Earth after the Tibetan Plateau?

Altiplano elevations average about 3,750 metres, a little lower than Tibet, and unlike Tibet the region is dominated by massive active volcanoes.

Natives of the Tibetan Plateau cope with thin air without raising levels of which blood protein?

Hemoglobin climbs in lowlanders and Andean highlanders at altitude, but Tibetans keep lower levels and are less prone to chronic mountain sickness.

Which vanished ocean closed as the Tibetan Plateau rose, leaving seabed sediments high in its rocks?

Tethys sediments were light, so instead of sinking they crumpled into mountain ranges as the continents closed in.

Which mountain chain, over 3,000 km long, forms the Tibetan Plateau's edge above the Tarim Basin?

Kunlun is one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, running from the Pamirs of Tajikistan east along the south side of the Taklamakan Desert.

Which range, home to K2, curves around the western edge of the Tibetan Plateau in Kashmir?

Karakoram peaks include four of the world's fourteen mountains above 8,000 metres, and K2 is the highest of the four.

Which salt lake on the Tibetan Plateau, also called Koko Nor, is the largest lake in China?

Qinghai gave its name to the province around it, and the lake is a salty, alkaline basin with no outlet to the sea.

Which tiny predator found above 6,500 metres on the Tibetan Plateau may be Earth's highest resident?

A jumping spider holds the claim: its scientific name means standing above everything, and it lives far above the highest plants.

Which unstaffed Tibetan Plateau stop, at 5,068 metres, is the highest railway station in the world?

Tanggula station has no staff and sits within a kilometre of the highest point on any railway, a pass at 5,072 metres.

Which remote region of the Tibetan Plateau is too harsh for farming and home only to nomads?

Changtang herders are called Changpa, meaning northerners, and their land stretches about 1,600 km from Ladakh deep into Tibet.

Which Tibetan Plateau salt lake, 4,700 metres up, is also known as Tengri Nor or Heavenly Lake?

Namtso freezes so hard in winter that pilgrims once walked across the ice to its islands for a summer retreat, carrying their food with them.

Which desert basin on the Tibetan Plateau has a name that means salt marsh?

Qaidam earns the name: a quarter of the basin is covered by salt lakes and dried salt flats, and desert takes up even more.

Which river, China's longest, rises on the Tibetan Plateau and flows east for more than 6,000 km?

Yangtze sources lie at Jari Hill on the plateau, and the basin the river drains covers a fifth of China's land area.