Ngari Overview

The Ngari Prefecture is located in the western part of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, at the center of the Changtang Plateau on the northern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. It begins at Zhamai Mountain, west of the Tanggula Mountains, in the east, bordering on the Nagqu Prefecture, and stretches to the western section of the Himalayas in the west and southwest, bordering on India and Nepal. It joins the middle section of the Kangdese Mountains, neighboring the Zongba and Sagar counties of the Xigaze Prefecture, and ends on the southern side of the Kunlun Mountains in the north, neighboring the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It covers a vast stretch of land and has a sparse population. The border totals 1,116 km, with 57 passageways linking the prefecture to other places. The prefecture stretches 600 km from east to west and measures 550 km from north to south, covering a total area of 34,500 square km.

The Ngari Prefecture is made up by seven counties, Burang, Gar, Ge'gyai, Gerze, Choqen, Zhada and Rutog, which hold 30 districts, 106 townships, and 359 administrative villages. Burang, Zhada, Gar and Rutog, in the southwestern and middle parts of the prefecture, engage mainly in agriculture, supplemented by animal husbandry, while Choqen, Gerze and Ge'gyai, in the east, engage purely in animal husbandry. The prefecture has a total population of 69,000. With a density of 0.23 people per square km, Ngari is the largest prefecture in China in geographic area, with the smallest density of population. The number of peasants and herdsmen totals 58,807, making up 85.2 percent of the total population.