The Tanggu La, Tangla Pass, or Tanggu Pass (; ) is a wide

mountain pass A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since mountain ranges can present formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both Human migration, human and animal migration t ...

Southwest China Southwestern China () is a region in the People's Republic of China. It consists of five provincial administrative regions, namely Chongqing, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Xizang. Geography Southwestern China is a rugged and mountainous region, ...

over in

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

, used by both the Qinghai–Tibet Highway and Qinghai–Tibet Railway to cross the Tanggula Mountains. These mountains on the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or Qingzang Plateau, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South, and East Asia. Geographically, it is located to the north of H ...

separate the

Tibet Autonomous Region The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), often shortened to Tibet in English or Xizang in Pinyin, Hanyu Pinyin, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China. It was established in 1965 to replace the ...

from the

Qinghai province Qinghai is an inland province in Northwestern China. It is the largest province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xining. Qinghai borders Gansu on the nort ...

, and also form part of the watershed separating the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

to the north from a zone of

endorheic basin An endorheic basin ( ; also endoreic basin and endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water (e.g. rivers and oceans); instead, the water drainage flows into permanent ...

s with internal drainage to the south. Pingo in Tibet near Tanggula pass

The Qinghai–Tibet Highway reaches its highest elevation of in the Tanggu Pass at . On August 24, 2005,

rail track Railway track ( and UIC terminology) or railroad track (), also known as permanent way () or "P way" ( and Indian English), is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers (railroad ties in American E ...

for the Qinghai–Tibet Railway was completed to the WNW of the highway, reaching at . The Tanggula railway station 1 km from this summit is the world's highest at , higher than that of Ticlio,

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. The Qinghai–Tibet railway connects the provincial capitals of

Xining Xining is the Capital (political), capital and most populous city of Qinghai province in western China and the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau. As of the 2020 census, it had 2,467,965 inhabitants (2,208,708 as of 2010), of whom 1,954,795 l ...

Lhasa Lhasa, officially the Chengguan District of Lhasa City, is the inner urban district of Lhasa (city), Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region, Southwestern China. Lhasa is the second most populous urban area on the Tibetan Plateau after Xining ...

. The -long section from

Golmud Golmud, also known by various other romanizations, is a county-level city in the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, China. It is now the second-largest city in Qinghai and the third largest in the Tibetan P ...

was opened on July 1, 2006. The rail cars are equipped with personal oxygen supplies to prevent

altitude sickness Altitude sickness, the mildest form being acute mountain sickness (AMS), is a harmful effect of high altitude, caused by rapid exposure to low amounts of oxygen at high elevation. People's bodies can respond to high altitude in different wa ...

Climate

References

External links

* (Published before construction of railway.) * (Published before construction of railway. Highway pass elevation given as 5,149 m.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Tanggula Pass Mountain passes of Tibet Mountain passes of China Tibetan Plateau Amdo