Ruoergai County or Zoigê County (; ) 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 ...

Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, also known as Aba (; Qiang: ; ), is an autonomous prefecture of northwestern Sichuan, bordering Gansu to the north and northeast and Qinghai to the northwest. Its seat is in Barkam, and it has an ar ...

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of th ...

, China, bordering Gansu to the north. It is the northernmost county of the province. It is part of the Tibetan traditional region of

Amdo Amdo ( �am˥˥.to˥˥ ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari (including former Guge kingdom) in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the ...

. It has an area of and a population of , 90.4% of which are

Tibetan people The Tibetan people (; ) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Tibet. Their current population is estimated to be around 6.7 million. In addition to the majority living in Tibet Autonomous Region of China, significant numbers of Tibetans ...

Geography

Ruoergai County is found in the easternmost sections 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 T ...

. The county is primarily a highland basin made up of the

Ruoergai Marsh Ruoergai County or Zoigê County (; ) is a County (People's Republic of China), county of Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, China, bordering Gansu to the north. It is the northernmost county of the province. It is part of th ...

between the

Min Mountains Min Mountains or Minshan () are a mountain range in central China. It runs in the general north-south direction through northern Sichuan (the eastern part of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and adjacent areas of Mianyang Prefect ...

and

Amne Machin Amne Machin, Anyi Machen, or Anyê Maqên ("Grandfather Pomra") is the highest peak of a mountain range of the same name in the southeast of Qinghai province, China. It is revered in Tibetan Buddhism as the home of the chief indigenous deity of ...

. The western border of the county, shared with

Maqu County Maqu County (; ) is a county of the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the south of Gansu province of the People's Republic of China, bordering the provinces of Sichuan to the east and southeast, and Qinghai to the southwest, west and northwes ...

in Gansu, is formed by the first major bend of the

Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan ...

where it changes course nearly 180 degrees and heads back towards

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

Climate

Ruoergai has an alpine subarctic climate ( Köppen ''Dwc''), featuring very cold nights even in summertime, and very cold winters with extreme

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 ...

s. Snow can fall any time of the year and usually does not melt until summer due to repeated nightly freezing even when maxima are above . Therefore, access to Ruoergai is heavily restricted during the winter months from late October to early May. Sitting at an altitude of more than 11,000 feet, high-altitude sickness is another common problem for tourists.

Transport

China National Highway 213 China National Highway 213 (G213) runs from Ceke, Inner Mongolia, to Mohan, on the border with Laos, in Yunnan. It is in length and runs via Chengdu, Sichuan and Kunming, Yunnan. Before the 2013 Highway Planning, the route started in Lanzhou, ...

Administrative divisions

Ruoergai County has four

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 ori ...

and 13

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, Ca ...

: *Town: **Dazhasi () **Tangke () **Xiaman () **Hongxing () *Townships: **Banyou () **Axi () ** Maixi () **Nenwa () **Donglie () **Chong'er () **Re'er () **Zhanwa () **Jiangzha () **Baxi () **Axirong () **Qiuji () **Baozuo ()

References

"China Ruoergai" - County Government site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruoergai County County-level divisions of Sichuan Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture