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The Tibetan Plateau , also known as the Qinghai-Tibetan (Qingzang) Plateau is a vast, elevated plateau in Central Asia covering most of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province in China and Ladakh in Kashmir, India. It occupies an area of around 1,000 by 2,500 kilometers, and has an average elevation of over 4,500 meters. Sometimes called "the roof of the world," it is the highest and biggest plateau, with an area of 2.5 million square kilometers (about four times the size of Texas or France).^[1]

The Tibetan Plateau is surrounded by towering mountain ranges.^[2] It 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 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.

The plateau is a high-altitude arid steppe interspersed with mountain ranges and large brackish lakes. Annual precipitation ranges from 100 mm to 300 mm and falls mainly as hailstorms. The southern and eastern edges of the steppe have grasslands which can sustainably support populations of nomadic herdsmen, although frost occurs for six months of the year. Proceeding to the north and northwest, the plateau becomes progressively higher, colder and drier, until reaching the remote Changtang region in the northwestern part of the plateau. Here the average altitude exceeds 5,000 meters (16,500 feet) and year-round temperatures average -4 °C, dipping to -40 °C in winter. As a result of this extremely inhospitable environment, the Changtang region (together with the adjoining Kekexili region) is the least populated region in Asia, and the third least populated area in the world after Antarctica and northern Greenland.^{[citation needed]}

For extensive parts of the plateau, permafrost occurs.

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