Zayul County ()
KNAB, retrieved 5 July 2021. THL’s Online Tibetan Transliteration Converter
an
THL’s Online Tibetan Phonetics Converter
invoked 31 August 2022. or Zayü County () is a county in the

Nyingchi Prefecture Nyingchi (), also known as Linzhi and as Nyingtri, is a prefecture-level city in the southeast of the Tibet Autonomous Region in China. The administrative seat of Nyingchi is Bayi District. Nyingchi is the location of Buchu Monastery. Econom ...

in the southeastern part of the

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 ...

, China. The historical Zayul region is marked by the basin of the Zayul River, with its two branches: ''Rongto Chu'' (or the western Zayul River) and ''Zayul Chu'' (or the eastern Zayul River). The two branches join together near the town of Rima. After the junction, the Zayul river enters India's

Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares ...

where it is called Lohit. The Zayul county borders

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

and

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

to the south and China's

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the ...

province to the southeast. To the northeast lies the Pome County and to the northwest the

Medog County Medog (in Tibetan) or Motuo (in Chinese) may refer to: * Mêdog County Mêdog, or Metok, or Motuo County (; ), also known as Pemako ( meaning "Lotus Array", ), is a county as well as a traditional region of the prefecture-level city of Nyingch ...

. Its headquarters of the county is Kyigang, referred to as the Zayul Town . In 1950, Zayul County was the epicenter of a devastating earthquake.

Geography

Zayul County is located in an area of highly varying topography, lying just south of the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the Ti ...

in the mountainous region east of the

Himalayas The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 10 ...

where the

Transhimalayas The Transhimalaya (also spelled Trans-Himalaya), or "Gangdise – Nyenchen Tanglha range" ( zh, s=冈底斯-念青唐古拉山脉, p=Gāngdǐsī-Niànqīngtánggǔlā Shānmài), is a mountain range in China, India and Nepal, extending in a wes ...

transition to the Hengduan Mountains. Specifically, the county straddles the southern parts of the Baxoila Range, the eastern parts of the Kangri Karpo mountains, and the eastern parts of the

Mishmi Hills The Mishmi Hills are located at the northeastern tip of India, in northeastern Arunachal Pradesh. On the Chinese side, they form the southern parts of Nyingchi Prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region. These hills occur at the junction of No ...

. Elevations generally decrease from northwest to southeast, with a maximal variation of : in the county, areas near the southern border have an elevation of , while there are 10 peaks over , the highest being Kawagarbo in the

Meili Xue Shan Meili Xue Shan (Chinese:梅里雪山, translation: "Mainri snowy range") or Mainri Snow Mountains (Tibetan: སྨན་རི།) is a mountain range in the Chinese province of Yunnan. It lies close to the northwestern boundary of the province ...

at . The county has an average elevation of . The primary rivers are the Zayul River through the central parts of the county and

Nu River , ''Mae Nam Salawin'' ( , name_etymology = , image = Sweet_View_of_Salween_River_in_Tang_Yan_Township,_Shan_State,_Myanmar.jpg , image_size = , image_caption = Salween River in Shan State, Myanmar , map ...

(Salween) in the east. The county has an area of . Besides India, Burma, and Yunnan, it borders Zogang County to the north and

Mêdog County Mêdog, or Metok, or Motuo County (; ), also known as Pemako ( meaning "Lotus Array", ), is a county as well as a traditional region of the prefecture-level city of Nyingchi in the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China ( ...

to the southwest.

Climate

Owing to its moderate elevation (for Tibet), Zayul County has a

subtropical highland climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

''Cwb''), a rarity in Tibet, with mild and quite dry winters, and warm, rainy summers. The rainy season lasts from March to September, and June through August each average more than 20 days of rainfall per month. The monthly daily average temperature ranges from in January to in July, and the annual mean is . The frost-free period is 280 days annually. Here, the

diurnal temperature range In meteorology, diurnal temperature variation is the variation between a high air temperature and a low temperature that occurs during the same day. Temperature lag Temperature lag is an important factor in diurnal temperature variation: peak da ...

is not large, maxing out at in November. Its climate is well-suited to support a variety of agricultural and forestry products.

Environment

The central parts of Zayul County contain a large isolated section of the

Northeastern Himalayan subalpine conifer forests The Northeastern Himalayan subalpine conifer forests are a temperate coniferous forests ecoregion of the middle to upper elevations of the eastern Himalayas and southeast Tibetan Plateau. The ecoregion occurs in southeastern Tibet Autonomous Reg ...

throughout the Zayul River valley and its tributaries. The highland areas of Zayul contain

Eastern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows The Eastern Himalayan alpine shrub and meadows is a montane grasslands and shrublands ecoregion of Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, and Nepal, which lies between the tree line and snow line in the eastern portion of the Himalaya Range. Setting The ...

. The eastern parts of the county are classified as Nujiang Langcang Gorge alpine conifer and mixed forests. There are, however, extremely dry areas within the Nu Valley in Zayul that support mostly

succulents In botany, succulent plants, also known as succulents, are plants with parts that are thickened, fleshy, and engorged, usually to retain water in arid climates or soil conditions. The word ''succulent'' comes from the Latin word ''sucus'', meani ...

. Gecko '' Hemiphyllodactylus zayuensis'', named after Zayul, is only known from the county.

Administrative divisions

The Zayul County has administration over three

towns A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an or ...

and three

townships A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...

: *Zayul Town () - County seat, * Xiachayu (Lower Zayul) (; ) * Shangzayü (Upper Zayul) (; ) * Goyul Township (; ) * Golag Township (; ) *

Tsawarong Cawarong or Tsawarong (; ) is a township in Zayü County, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Wu Zhenhua (武振华), Xizang Diming (西藏地名; Place Names in Tibet), p.65, Chinese Zangxue Press (中国藏学出版社) 1996, It lies at an altit ...

Township (; ) The town of Rima (; ) , on the border with India's

, was once the headquarters of the Zayul region and referred to as the "Zayul Town". There are also numerous villages scattered throughout the valleys in Zayü County administered by their respective towns or townships. Puzang is part of Upper Zayul and Shaqiong is part of Lower Zayul.

Sino-Indian border dispute

China claims nearly the entire

as being part of Tibet, especially the

Walong Walong is an administrative town and the headquarters of eponymous circle in the Anjaw district in eastern-most part of Arunachal Pradesh state in India. It also has a small cantonment of the Indian Army. Walong is on banks of Lohit River, which ...

region in the Zayul River valley below Rima. The area was one of the theatres of the 1962

Sino-Indian War The Sino-Indian War took place between China and India from October to November 1962, as a major flare-up of the Sino-Indian border dispute. There had been a series of violent border skirmishes between the two countries after the 1959 Tibet ...

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

Zayul County
OpenStreetMap, retrieved 2 October 2022.
Zayul river basin
OpenStreetMap, retrieved 2 October 2022. {{DEFAULTSORT:Zayu County Counties of Tibet Nyingchi