The Karakoram (, )
The Karakoram begins in the Wakhan Corridor in western Afghanistan and extends eastwards into Indian-administered Ladakh and Chinese-administered Aksai Chin, as well as the Chinese province of Xinjiang. Most of the Karakoram is located within the Pakistani-administered Gilgit-Baltistan region. The Karakoram is bounded on the east by the Aksai Chin plateau, on the north-east by the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, and on the north by the river valleys of the Yarkand River and Karakash River, beyond which lie the Kunlun Mountains. At the north-west corner are the Pamir Mountains. The southern boundary of the Karakoram is formed west to east by the Gilgit River, Indus River, and Shyok River, which separate the range from the north-western end of the Himalayas. These rivers flow north-west before making an abrupt turn south-westwards towards the plains of Pakistan. Roughly in the middle of the Karakoram range is the Karakoram Pass, which was part of a now unused trade route between Ladakh and Yarkant County.
The range is about in length and is the most glacier place on Earth outside the polar regions. The Siachen Glacier ( long) and Biafo Glacier ( long) are the second- and third-longest glaciers outside the polar regions.[Tajikistan's Fedchenko Glacier is long. Baltoro and Batura Glaciers in the Karakoram are long, as is Bruggen or Pio XI Glacier in southern Chile. Measurements are from recent imagery, generally supplemented with Russian 1:200,000 scale topographic mapping as well as Jerzy Wala, Orographical Sketch Map: Karakoram: Sheets 1 & 2, Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research, Zurich, 1990.] The Karakoram is the Greater Ranges on Earth and part of a complex of ranges that includes the Pamir Mountains, Hindu Kush, and the Indian Himalayas.[.][.]
Name
Karakoram is a
Turkic languages term meaning
black gravel. The Central Asian traders originally applied the name to the
Karakoram Pass.
Early European travelers, including William Moorcroft and George Hayward, started using the term for the range of mountains west of the pass, although they also used the term
Muztagh (meaning, "Ice Mountain") for the range now known as Karakoram.
Later terminology was influenced by Thomas Montgomerie of the Survey of India, who gave the labels K1 to K6 (K for Karakoram) to six high mountains visible from his station at
Mount Haramukh in the 1850s. These codes were extended up to more than thirty.
In traditional Indian geography, the mountains were known as Krishnagiri (black mountains), Kanhagiri, and Kanheri.
Exploration
Due to its altitude and ruggedness, the Karakoram is much less inhabited than parts of the
Himalayas further east. European explorers first visited in the early 19th century, followed by British surveyors starting in 1856.
The Muztagh Pass was crossed in 1887 by the expedition of Colonel Francis Younghusband,[Patrick French. (1994). Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer, pp. 53, 56-60. HarperCollins Publishers, London. Reprint (1995): Flamingo. London. .] 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,
Floral surveys were carried out in the Shyok River catchment and from Panamik to Turtuk village by Chandra Prakash Kala during 1999 and 2000.
Geology and glaciers
The Karakoram is in one of the world's most geologically active areas, at the plate boundary between the Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate.
A significant part, somewhere between 28 and 50 percent, of the Karakoram Range is glaciated, covering an area of more than ,
compared to between 8 and 12 percent of the Himalaya and 2.2 percent of the
Alps.
Mountain
may serve as an indicator of climate change, advancing and receding with long-term changes in temperature and precipitation. The Karakoram glaciers are slightly retreating,
unlike the Himalayas, where glaciers are losing mass at a significantly higher rate, many Karakoram glaciers are covered in a layer of rubble which insulates the ice from the warmth of the sun.
Where there is no such insulation, the rate of retreat is high.
Ice Age
In the last
ice age, a
ice cap stretched from western
Tibet to
Nanga Parbat, and from the
Tarim Basin to the
Gilgit District.
[ (glacier maps downloadable)] To the south, the
Indus Valley was the main valley glacier, which flowed down from the
Nanga Parbat massif to elevation.
In the north, the Karakoram glaciers joined those from the
Kunlun Mountains and flowed down to in the Tarim Basin.
While the current valley glaciers in the Karakoram reach a maximum length of , several of the ice-age valley glacier branches and main valley glaciers, had lengths up to . During the Ice Age, the glacier snowline was about lower than today.
Highest peaks
The majority of the highest peaks are in the Gilgit–Baltistan region administered by Pakistan. Baltistan has more than 100 mountain peaks exceeding height from sea level. Following is a list for the highest peaks of the Karakoram. Included are some of the mountains named with a K code, the most well-known of which is the K2.
Subranges
The naming and division of the various subranges of the Karakoram is not universally agreed upon. However, the following is a list of the most important subranges, following Jerzy Wala.
[Jerzy Wala, Orographical Sketch Map of the Karakoram, Swiss Foundation for Alpine Research, Zurich, 1990.] The ranges are listed roughly west to east.
Passes
Passes from west to east are:
The Khunjerab Pass is the only motorable pass across the range. The Shimshal Pass (which does not cross an international border) is the only other pass still in regular use.
Cultural references
The Karakoram mountain range has been referred to in a number of
novels and movies.
Rudyard Kipling refers to the Karakoram mountain range in his novel
Kim, which was first published in 1900.
Marcel Ichac made a film titled
Karakoram, chronicling a French expedition to the range in 1936. The film won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival of 1937.
Greg Mortenson details the Karakoram, and specifically K2 and the
Balti people, extensively in his book
Three Cups of Tea, about his quest to build schools for children in the region.
K2 Kahani (The K2 Story) by Mustansar Hussain Tarar describes his experiences at K2 base camp.
See also
-
Karakoram Highway
-
List of mountain ranges of the world
-
List of highest mountains (a list of mountains above )
-
Mount Imeon
Citations
Sources
-
Curzon, George Nathaniel. 1896. The Pamirs and the Source of the Oxus. Royal Geographical Society, London. Reprint: Elibron Classics Series, Adamant Media Corporation. 2005. (pbk); (hbk).
-
Rudyard Kipling 2002. Kim (novel); ed. by Zohreh T. Sullivan. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. —This is the most extensive critical modern edition with footnotes, essays, maps, etc.
-
Greg Mortenson and Relin, David Oliver. 2008. Three Cups of Tea. Penguin Books Ltd. (pbk); Viking Books (hbk); Tantor Media (MP3 CD).
-
Kreutzmann, Hermann, Karakoram in Transition: Culture, Development, and Ecology in the Hunza Valley, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006. .
Further reading
External links
