An Introduction to the Tibetan Plateau    
The Tibetan Plateau, often called the "roof of the world", is the largest and highest plateau in the world. Locate in Inner Asia between India to the south and China to the east, it is the result of collisions between the Indo-Australian and Eurasian tectonic plates, which has formed the Himalayan mountain range that constitutes the southern border of the Tibetan plateau. It covers an area of some 2.5 million square kilometers (1,000 by 2,500 kilometers), which means about four times the size of Texas or France. It is approximately 5000 m above sea level on the average. The height of this plateau is such that it is enough to reverse the Hadley convection cycles and drive the monsoons of India to the south. The plateau is chiefly inhabited by Tibetan cultures. In terms of modern administrative units, it includes most of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province in China and Ladakh in Kashmir, India. The Tibetan Plateau is bordered to the northwest by the Kunlun Range which separates it from the Tarim Basin, and to the northeast by the Qilian Range which separates the plateau from the Hexi Corridor and Gobi Desert. Near the south the plateau is transected by the Yarlung Tsangpo River valley which flows along the base of the Himalayas, and by the vast Indo-Gangetic Plain. To the east and southeast the plateau gives way to the forested gorge and ridge geography of the mountainous headwaters of the Salween, Mekong, and Yangtze rivers in western Sichuan and southwest Qinghai. In the west it is embraced by the curve of the rugged Karakoram range of northern Kashmir.

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