The Ardagh–Johnson Line is the northeastern boundary of Kashmir drawn by surveyor William Johnson and recommended by

John Charles Ardagh Major-General Sir John Charles Ardagh (9 August 1840 – 30 September 1907), was an Anglo-Irish officer of the British Army, who served as a military engineer, surveyor, intelligence officer, and colonial administrator. Biography Early life a ...

as the official boundary of India. It abuts China's

Xinjiang 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

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 people, ...

autonomous regions. The Ardagh–Johnson Line is one of three boundary lines considered by the British Indian government, the other two being the

Macartney–MacDonald Line The Macartney–MacDonald Line is a proposed boundary in the disputed area of Aksai Chin. It was proposed by British Indian Government to China in 1899 via its envoy to China, Sir Claude MacDonald. The Chinese Government never gave any response ...

and a line along the

Karakoram 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 ...

range. The British preference among the three choices varied over time based on the perception of their strategic interests in India. The Ardagh–Johnson Line represented the "forward school" that wanted to advance the boundary as forward as possible as a defence against the growing Russian empire. Following the Chinese reluctance to acquiesce to the more conservative Macartney–MacDonald Line, the British eventually reverted to the forward line in the

Aksai Chin Aksai Chin is a region administered by China as part of Hotan County, Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang and Rutog County, Ngari Prefecture, Tibet. It is claimed by India to be a part of its Leh District, Ladakh Union Territory. It is a part of ...

area, which was then inherited by the independent

Republic of 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 ...

Etymology

Jammu and Kashmir in 1888 Survey of India map

W. H. Johnson W. H. Johnson may refer to: * William Johnson (surveyor) (died 1883), British surveyor in India * W. H. Johnson Jr. William Harvey Johnson Jr. (May 10, 1919 – March 22, 2004) was an American politician and lawyer from Mississippi. He served for ...

was the lead surveyor of Ladakh in the Kashmir Survey team instituted 1847–1865 by the

Survey of India The Survey of India is India's central engineering agency in charge of mapping and surveying.British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi language, Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Q ...

till 1947. (See Maps 2–4.) Major General

was the chief of the British military intelligence in London, who formally proposed to the British Indian government the alignment drawn by Johnson as the boundary of India in 1897. The term "Johnson boundary" was used by historian

Alastair Lamb Alastair Lamb is a diplomatic historian who has authored several books on the Sino-Indian border dispute and the Indo-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir. He has also worked in archaeology and ethnography in Asia and Africa. Career Alastair Lam ...

in his book ''The China–India Border'' (1964) and "Johnson line" by journalist

Neville Maxwell Neville Maxwell (1926 – 23 September 2019) was a British journalist and scholar who authored the 1970 book ''India's China War'', which is considered a revisionist analysis of the 1962 Sino-Indian War, putting the blame for it on India. Maxwe ...

. No names were used for the boundary lines in the northeast of Kashmir prior to these authors. Scholar Steven Hoffman later used "Ardagh–Johnson Line" to refer to the line generally shown on British maps, which differs from the "Johnson line" in its northern boundary.

Initial survey

In May 1865,

of the

Survey of India The Survey of India is India's central engineering agency in charge of mapping and surveying.hitherto-unexplored Aksai Chin, following the main trade route — averaging about thirty miles per day. The resulting map was published in 1867. Johnson noted that

Khotan Hotan (also known as Gosthana, Gaustana, Godana, Godaniya, Khotan, Hetian, Hotien) is a major oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang, an autonomous region in Western China. The city proper of Hotan broke off from the larger Hotan County to become ...

's border was at Brinjga, in the Kunlun mountains, and the entire Karakash Valley was within the territory of Kashmir. The boundary of Kashmir that he drew, stretching from Sanju Pass to the eastern edge of Chang Chenmo Valley along the Kunlun mountains, is referred to as the "Johnson Line". In 1893, Hung Ta-chen, a senior Chinese official at

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, provided a map which coincided with the Ardagh–Johnson line in broad details. It showed the boundary of Xinjiang up to Raskam. In the east, it was similar to the Ardagh–Johnson line, placing Aksai Chin in Kashmir territory.

Ardagh Proposal

Jammu and Kashmir in 1909 map from the Imperial Gazetteer

Jammu and Kashmir in 1946 map of India by National Geographic

Since the late 1800s, local government officials were increasingly unhappy with accuracy of such traverse-maps and as a result, new surveys (along with boundary commissions) were frequently set up. However, extremely inhospitable geological conditions of Northeast Kashmir and difficulty in determining water-sheds across the Aksai Chin meant a continued lack of precision surveys covering this region. In 1888, the Joint Commissioner of Ladakh requested India's Foreign Department to demarcate boundaries across northern and eastern Kashmir in a clear manner. After much back and forth, the department concluded that Johnson (and those who followed him) had an unconvincing view of the Indus watershed and their traverse-maps were too imprecise (and lacking in details) to serve the purpose of adjudicating territorial boundaries. In 1897 a British military officer, Sir John Ardagh, proposed a boundary line along the crest of the

Kun Lun Mountains The Kunlun Mountains ( zh, s=昆仑山, t=崑崙山, p=Kūnlún Shān, ; ug, كۇئېنلۇن تاغ تىزمىسى / قۇرۇم تاغ تىزمىسى ) constitute one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending for more than . In the bro ...

north of the

Yarkand River The Yarkand River (or Yarkent River, Yeh-erh-ch'iang Ho) is a river in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of western China. It originates in the Siachen Muztagh in a part of the Karakoram range and flows into the Tarim River or Neinejoung R ...

. At the time Britain was concerned at the danger of Russian expansion as China weakened, and Ardagh argued that his line was more defensible. The Ardagh line was effectively a modification of the Johnson line, and became known as the "Ardagh–Johnson Line".

Aftermath

In 1911 the

Xinhai Revolution The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty, the Manchu people, Manchu-led Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of Chi ...

resulted in power shifts in China, and by the end of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, the British officially used the Ardagh–Johnson Line. From 1917 to 1933, the "Postal Atlas of China", published by the Government of China in Peking showed the boundary in Aksai Chin as per the Ardagh–Johnson line, which runs along the

Kunlun mountains The Kunlun Mountains ( zh, s=昆仑山, t=崑崙山, p=Kūnlún Shān, ; ug, كۇئېنلۇن تاغ تىزمىسى / قۇرۇم تاغ تىزمىسى ) constitute one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending for more than . In the br ...

. The "Peking University Atlas", published in 1925, also put the Aksai Chin in India.

Border of independent India

Upon

independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the s ...

in 1947, the government of India fixed its official boundary in the west, which included the Aksai Chin, in a manner that resembled the Ardagh–Johnson Line. India's basis for defining the border was “''chiefly by long usage and custom''.”. Unlike the Johnson line, India did not claim the northern areas near

Shahidulla Shahidulla, also spelt Xaidulla from Mandarin Chinese, (altitude ca. 3,646 m or 11,962 ft), was a nomad camping ground and historical caravan halting place in the Karakash River valley, close to Khotan, in the southwestern part of Xinjiang Au ...

and

Gallery

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ardagh-Johnson Line China–India border Eponymous border lines