The Sarikol Range (russian: Сарыкольский хребет; zh, s=萨雷阔勒岭, 色勒库尔山脉; tg, Рашти Куҳи Сариқӯл) is a mountain range in the

Pamirs The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range between Central Asia and Pakistan. It is located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya mountain ranges. They are among the world ...

on the border of

Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...

and the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The name Sarikol has also been used to describe the local people who are historically known as Sarikolis; the local

Sarikoli language The Sarikoli language (also Sariqoli, Selekur, Sarikul, Sariqul, Sariköli) is a member of the Pamir subgroup of the Southeastern Iranian languages spoken by Tajiks in China. It is officially referred to in China as the "Tajik language", althou ...

and

Tashkurgan Town Tashkurgan ( ug, تاشقورغان بازىرى; zh, s=塔什库尔干镇, p=Tǎshíkù'ěrgān Zhèn; ) is a town in the far northwest of China, close to the country's border with Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. It is the principal tow ...

, which was historically known as Sarikol.

Geography

The range divides Tajikistan's

Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province Gorno-Badakhshan, officially the Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region,, abbr. / is an autonomous region in eastern Tajikistan, in the Pamir Mountains. It makes up nearly forty-five percent of the country's land area, but only two percen ...

and China's

Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Xinjiang, SASM/GNC: ''Xinjang''; zh, c=, p=Xīnjiāng; formerly romanized as Sinkiang (, ), officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the northwest ...

and it runs parallel with the Muztagh Range to the east. The range extends from the Markansu River in the north to the

Beyik Pass The Beyik Pass, also written and Payik Pass and Bayik Pass, is a mountain pass in the Sarikol Range between Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan and the Taghdumbash Pamir region of Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang, Ch ...

in the south. Its average elevation is roughly and the highest point in the range is Mount Lyavirdyr at . On the Tajik part of the range there are 240 glaciers with a total area of 144 km².''Сарыкольский хребет''
- article from the

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

The range's

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

feeds both the

Amu Darya The Amu Darya, tk, Amyderýa/ uz, Amudaryo// tg, Амударё, Amudaryo ps, , tr, Ceyhun / Amu Derya grc, Ὦξος, Ôxos (also called the Amu, Amo River and historically known by its Latin name or Greek ) is a major river in Central Asi ...

and

Tarim River The Tarim River ( zh, p=Tǎlǐmù Hé, c=塔里木河; ug, تارىم دەرياسى, Tarim deryasi), known in Sanskrit as the Śītā, is an endorheic river in Xinjiang, China. It is the principal river of the Tarim Basin, a desert region of C ...

. The range is composed of

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes ...

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

and

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures a ...

References

{{Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province Mountain ranges of Xinjiang Mountain ranges of Tajikistan China–Tajikistan border Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region Pamir Mountains

Geography

See also

References