Semo La
[''La'' means "pass" in Tibetan] (; bo, བཟར་མོ་ལ) is a
mountain pass
A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since many of the world's mountain ranges have presented formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both Human migration, human a ...
situated in
Coqên County
Coqên County (; ) is a county in the Ngari Prefecture, in the west of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It is the located in the southeast of Ngari Prefecture.
Administrative divisions
Coqên county is divided into 1 town and 4 townships
...
,
Ngari Prefecture in the central part of
Tibet and gives access to the
Changtang region. It is found on the so-called Northern Route, north of
Raka and south of
Town of Coqên in Central Tibet. Travellers use this route as an alternative access route to western Tibet and
Mount Kailash, especially when mud makes access by the more southern route difficult.
The road crossing the pass was once an old unsurfaced track travelled only by a weekly bus and trucks heading west to avoid the boggy parts of the south of the country.
The construction of paved road through the pass, Tibet Provincial Road S206, was finished in late 2015.
Elevation
The height according to the Tibet Department of Transportation is ;
however, the signage at the road rounded it up to . In 2005, a Catalan cartographic expedition certified the height to be .
At , Semo La may be the
highest asphalted road in the world.
Khardung La was once thought to be the world record holder at ; in reality, according to modern surveys, it measures , less than previously thought.
See also
*
List of extreme points of China
References
Mountain passes of Tibet
Mountain passes of China
Transhimalayas
Tibetan Plateau
Ngari Prefecture
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