Ladakh
(2001 est. pop. 118,000). Ladakh, formerly called Middle Tibet, is a mountainous district of Jammu and Kashmir that forms the northernmost area of the Indian Republic. It covers 82,665 square kilometers of very high and rugged country, and is the biggest administrative district anywhere in India. Elevations range from 3,000 to 5,000 meters. Aside from its mountains, the most important physical feature of Ladakh is the great valley of the Indus River, which crosses the entire district as it flows northwestward from its source in Tibet, thus separating the Karakoram Range from the Zanskar Range. Near Leh, the district headquarters, the Indus is 3,350 meters above sea level. The observatory at Leh is said to be the most elevated one in Asia. It records a mean annual temperature of 4.4°C, dropping in the coldest months (January and February) to about –8°C.
The culture is basically a Tibetan one, with numerous lamaistic monasteries. But while the bulk of the population are Lamaistic Buddhists, the Baltis in the west are Shiʿite Muslims. There is very little arable land, but this remote region abounds in valuable minerals: lead, gold, copper, sulfur, coal, iron, borax, gypsum, and precious stones. Ladakh has long been an area involved in trans-Himalayan trade, difficult as this is.
Further Reading
Rizvi, Janet. (1996) Ladakh: Crossroads of High Asia. 2d ed. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
——. (1999) Trans-Himalayan Caravans: Merchant Princes and Peasant Traders in Ladakh. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
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