Rutog County (), (in ) is a

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

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 Autonomous Region The Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet or Xizang, is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China in Southwest China. It was overlayed on the traditional Tibetan regions of � ...

of the People's Republic of China. The county seat is the new

Rutog Town The Rutog Town (), called Rituzhen in Chinese (;),
KNAB place name database. is a town and the seat of Lhasa Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Region in Southwest China. The inner urban area of Lhas ...

. Rutog County shares a border with

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The county has a rich history of folk tales, myths, legends, proverbs and folk songs and has many caves, rock paintings and other relics. The Xinjiang-Tibet Highway runs through the Rutog County for . The modern county established in March 1961 covers . It has a very low population density with a population of just over 10,000.

Name

'Rutog' is Tibetan for "mountain shaped like a spear and fork".

Geography and climate

Rutog County is located in northwestern Tibet, Ngari northwest with a number of territorial borders. It is divided into 12 townships and 30 village committees. The

Karakoram Mountains The Karakoram is a mountain range in Kashmir region spanning the borders of Pakistan, China, and India, with the northwest extremity of the range extending to Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Most of the Karakoram mountain range falls under t ...

go through the county. The average altitude of with a maximum altitude of . Lakes in Rutog County include Bangda Lake, Guozha Lake, Longmu Lake, Lumajangdong Co, Wo Erba Lake and

Pangong Tso Pangong Tso or Pangong Lake (; ; hi, text=पैंगोंग झील) is an endorheic lake spanning eastern Ladakh and West Tibet situated at an elevation of . It is long and divided into five sublakes, called ''Pangong Tso'', ''Tso N ...

. Overall Rutog County has a rough subarctic climate with long, very cold, sometimes snowy winters and short, cool, humid summers (''Dfc'') owing its extreme altitude. To the north, Rutog County shares borders with Hotan County (Hetian),

Qira County Qira County ( Uyghur: ), alternatively Chira or Cele (from Mandarin Chinese), is a county in Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. Almost all the residents of the county are Uyghurs and live around oases situated between the ...

(Cele) and Keriya County (Yutian) in

Hotan Prefecture Hotan PrefectureThe official spelling is "Hotan" according to (also known as Gosthana, Gaustana, Godana, Godaniya, Khotan, Hetian, Hotien) is located in the Tarim Basin region of southwestern Xinjiang, China, bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region ...

(Hetian), Xinjiang. To the east, the county borders Gêrzê County.

History

Rutog was part of the Maryul kingdom (modern Ladakh), when it was established in the 10th century. It was again consolidated as part of Ladakh during the reign of

Sengge Namgyal Sengge Namgyal (''Sen-ge-rnam-rgyal'', c. 1570–1642) was a 17th-century Namgyal dynasty King of Ladakh, India from 1616 to his death in 1642. A Buddhist, he was noted for his immense work in building monasteries, palaces and shrines in Ladakh ...

, but was later conquered by Lhasa through the Tibet-Ladakh-Mughal War. Rutog and Ladakh continued to have extensive trading relations at all times, with occasional disputes over borders. The headquarters of the region was at Old Rudok (Rutog Dzong; ), a hill top location, which boasted a fort as well as several monasteries. During the period of the

British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was him ...

in India, European visitors were expressly prohibited from visiting the Rudok, but the British official E. B. Wakefield managed to visit it in 1939. With the 1950 Chinese annexation of Tibet, Rutog became part of the

of China. In October 1983, the county seat was moved from Old Rudok to the village of Derub (; ). The present

Rutog Town The Rutog Town (), called Rituzhen in Chinese (;),
KNAB place name database. is a town and the seat of

Administrative divisions

The only town is

Rutog Town The Rutog Town (), called Rituzhen in Chinese (;),
KNAB place name database. is a town and the seat of Townships * Dungru Township (Tungru; ) * Domar Township (Duoma; , ) * Risong Township (Risum; , ) * Rabang Township (Rebang; , ).

Demographics and economy

, the residents of the county were Tibetan. Rutog County's economy is based around farming and animal husbandry. Aside from wool, butter, hides, cattle cashmere, etc. are produced. In Rutog County, the main growing crop is barley and yaks, sheep, goats, horses and other livestock are important to the economy. Rutog County has many wild animals and plants, including the

black-necked crane The black-necked Crane (''Grus nigricollis'') is a medium-sized crane in Asia that breeds on the Tibetan Plateau and remote parts of India and Bhutan. It is 139 cm (55 in) long with a 235 cm (7.8 ft) wingspan, and it weighs ...

goose A goose ( : geese) is a bird of any of several waterfowl species in the family Anatidae. This group comprises the genera ''Anser'' (the grey geese and white geese) and '' Branta'' (the black geese). Some other birds, mostly related to the ...

, wild yak,

Tibetan antelope The Tibetan antelope or chiru (''Pantholops hodgsonii'') (, pronounced ; ) is a medium-sized bovid native to the northeastern Tibetan plateau. Most of the population live within the Chinese border, while some scatter across India and Bhutan in ...

Mongolian gazelle The Mongolian gazelle (''Procapra gutturosa''), or dzeren (russian: Дзерэн), is a medium-sized antelope native to the semiarid Central Asian steppes of Mongolia, as well as some parts of Siberia and China. The name ''dzeren'' is Russian ...

, black sheep,

kiang The kiang (''Equus kiang'') is the largest of the '' Asinus'' subgenus. It is native to the Tibetan Plateau, where it inhabits montane and alpine grasslands. Its current range is restricted to the plains of the Tibetan plateau; Ladakh; and nort ...

, and bear. A number of rare animals are protected by the government and are of high value. Known mineral resources are

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

, chromite,

borax Borax is a salt ( ionic compound), a hydrated borate of sodium, with chemical formula often written . It is a colorless crystalline solid, that dissolves in water to make a basic solution. It is commonly available in powder or granular for ...

, and

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...

. In the five years from 2006–2011, Rutog County produced 72 tons of cashmere wool worth 16 million yuan ($2.5 million USD in 2011). China produces 75% of the world's cashmere wool. In 1984, the average per capita income of Rutog County residents was 478 yuan. The

China National Highway 219 China National Highway 219 (G219; Chinese: '' Guódào219'') is a highway which runs along the entire western and southern border of the People's Republic of China, from Kom-Kanas Mongolian ethnic township in Xinjiang to Dongxing in Guangxi. ...

passes through Rutog County.

Incidents

At around 11 AM on July 17, 2016, nine people, 350 sheep and 110 yaks were buried in an

avalanche An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a slope, such as a hill or mountain. Avalanches can be set off spontaneously, by such factors as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, animals, and eart ...

near the Aru Lake (at ), about from Rutog Town . The avalanche fell on a grazing area and the snow was as much as deep. The local government dispatched rescuers and equipment to the site of the avalanche. The avalanche was described by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

as one of the largest avalanches in history. On September 21, 2016, another similarly large avalanche occurred just to the south.

Historical maps

Historical maps including Rutog: File:China West 1906-08 Sven Hedin.jpg, Map of the expeditions of Sven Hedin (1906-8) including Rutog (labeled as Rudok) ( RGS, early 20th century) File:Txu-oclc-6654394-ni-44-3rd-ed.jpg, Map including Rutog (labeled as Rudok) ( AMS, 1950) File:Operational Navigation Chart G-7, 6th edition.jpg, Map including the Rutog County area ( DMA, 1980) File:Txu-pclmaps-oclc-22834566 g-7d.jpg, Map including Rutog (Jih-t'u) ( DMA, 1995)

Notes

References

External links

"China Tibet Information Centre" * https://web.archive.org/web/20200522001714/http://rt.al.gov.cn/info/1073/4800.htm {{Ngari Prefecture Counties of Tibet Ngari Prefecture