Gar Tsangpo (; ), also called Gartang or Gar River, is a headwater of the Indus River in the

Ngari Prefecture Ngari Prefecture () or Ali Prefecture () is a prefecture of China's Tibet Autonomous Region covering Western Tibet, whose traditional name is Ngari Khorsum. Its administrative centre and largest settlement is the town of Shiquanhe. History Nga ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...

, China. It merges with other headwater,

Sênggê Zangbo Sengge Zangbo, Sengge Khabab () or Shiquan He () is a river in the Ngari Prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China that is the source stream of the Indus river, one of the major trans-Himalayan rivers of Central and South Asia. The river ...

, near the village of Tashigang to form the Indus River. The combined river flows in the same valley and in the same direction as Gar Tsangpo. Thus by physical geography, Gar Tsangpo is the "Indus River". The Tibetans however regard Sênggê Zangbo as the main Indus River, and treat Gar Tsangpo as a tributary. Gartok, the former administrative headquarters of Ngari is in the Gar Valley. The present headquarters, under

PRC 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 ...

administration, is at

Shiquanhe Shiquanhe (), known in Tibetan as Sênggêkanbab () or Sênggêzangbo, is the main town and administrative seat of Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. Shiquanhe is located on the bank of Sênggê Zangbo, the source stream of the I ...

in the Sênggê Zangbo valley, close to the point of confluence of the two rivers.

Course

The sources of Gartang are on the southwestern slopes of the

Kailas Range Mount Kailash (also Kailasa; ''Kangrinboqê'' or ''Gang Rinpoche''; Tibetan: གངས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ; ; sa, कैलास, ), is a mountain in the Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It has an altitude of ...

(Gangdise Shan). From there, the river flows northwest in the Gar Valley, the tectonic valley between the Kailas Range and the Ladakh Range. The slope of the valley is extremely gentle, only about 2 metres per kilometre. After a distance of , the Gartang joins Sengge Zangbo (Shiquan He), which originates on the northern slopes of

Mount Kailas Mount Kailash (also Kailasa; ''Kangrinboqê'' or ''Gang Rinpoche''; Tibetan: གངས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ; ; sa, कैलास, ), is a mountain in the Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It has an altitude of ...

and flows in a wide arc towards the Gar Valley. The point of confluence is near the town of Tashigang (Zhaxigang). After the confluence, the combined river, regarded as the Indus River, flows in the same direction as Gartang. For this reason, western explorers have traditionally regarded Gartang as the main source of the Indus River. However, the Tibetans regard Sengge Zangbo as the main Indus River and the Gartang as its tributary. The Gartang river drains an area of 6,060 km2.

History

Two well-known villages cum encampments, Gar Yarsa and Gar Gunsa, lie along the course of the Gartang, separated by . The two locations together have been called "Gartok" and served as the administrative headquarters of

Ngari Ngari Prefecture () or Ali Prefecture () is a prefecture of China's Tibet Autonomous Region covering Western Tibet, whose traditional name is Ngari Khorsum. Its administrative centre and largest settlement is the town of Shiquanhe. History Ngar ...

(West Tibet) during the

Ganden Phodrang The Ganden Phodrang or Ganden Podrang (; ) was the Tibetan system of government established by the 5th Dalai Lama in 1642; it operated in Tibet until the 1950s. Lhasa became the capital of Tibet again early in this period, after the Oirat lo ...

administration of Tibet. The Lhasa-appointed administrator, called Garpön, used to stay at Gar Yarsa during the summemr months, and at Gar Gunsa during the winter. After the Chinese annexation of Tibet in 1950, the headquarters of Ngari was moved to a new town of

on the Sengge Zangbo river.

References

Bibliography

* {{citation , last=I︠U︡sov , first=B. V. , title=Physical Geography of Tibet , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qU_WAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA81 , year=1959 , publisher=U.S. Joint Publications Research Service , ref={{sfnref, I︠U︡sov, Physical Geography of Tibet, 1959 Rivers of Tibet Tributaries of the Indus River