Pangong Tso

English

Alternative forms

• Bangong Co

Etymology

From Tibetan སྤང་གོང་མཚོ (spang gong mtsho).

Proper noun

Pangong Tso

1. An endorheic lake on the border between Leh district, Ladakh, India and Rutog, Tibet, China, with a portion in the disputed Aksai Chin.
   • 1868 [1866 June 16], H. H. Godwin-Austen, “Notes on the PANGONG LAKE district of LADAKH, from journal made in 1863”, in Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal‎^[1], page 87:

     The Pangong Tso (lake) is about two and a half miles distant from the low ridge of the Surtokh La, or more properly speaking, its natural bar or bund, but the level of the old lake bed extends up to within a very short distance of the pass. A rise of 150 feet in the waters of the present lake would find them again an exit down the valley to Tanksè. A Trigonometrical station lies close to the water's edge, it bears east-south-east from a rock, a quarter mile distant out in the lake, and is marked with a stone having the usual dot and circle cut on it; its height has been determined trigonometrically to be 13,931 feet above the sea. From this mark-stone, a fine view of the first long reach of this elevated and interesting piece of water is obtained. Its colour is of an intense blue, the water as clear as crystal, but far too saline to be drinkable ; there was quite a true salt water feel in the air as the wind blew off it.

   • 1870 [1869 July 8], J. L. Stewart, “Notes of a Botanical Tour in Ladak or Western Tibet”, in Transactions of the Botanical Society‎^[2], volume X, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 224‎^[3]:

     From this, 14,800 feet, the slope was easy, and, while descending, light snow fell for about half an hour. Ere long I got my first glimpse of the Pangong Tso, with its great blue bosom everywhere indented by spurs of the lofty mountains round it.

   • 1987, Blanche Christine Olschak, Himalayas: Growing Mountains, Living Myths, Migrating Peoples‎^[4], Facts on File, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 81:

     The same valley leads farther off to the northwest, passes the fjord-like Pangong Tso to the south and then becomes part of the Shyok valley; the Shyok comes down from the Karakorum pass, flows south at first along the Karakorum fault and then swings sharply northwest by the little town of Shyok.

   • 2014, Sophie Lovell-Hoare, Max Lovell-Hoare, Kashmir (Bradt Guides)‎^[5], →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page 139:

     From May to September there is a bi-weekly JKSRTC bus from Leh to Spangmik, a village on the shore of Pangong Tso, which departs from Leh on Saturday and Sunday at 06.30, returning to Leh the following morning at 07.00.

   • 2021 February 21, Sanjeev Miglani, “Hundreds protest S.China project over pollution worries”, in Reuters‎^[6], archived from the original on 11 October 2021:

     Thousands of soldiers have been facing off since April on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), or the de facto border, including at the glacial Pangong Tso lake.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Pangong Tso.

Translations

lake

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Japanese: please add this translation if you can
• Korean: please add this translation if you can

Further reading

• Pangong Tso, Panggong Tso, Bangong Co at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
• Saul B. Cohen, editor (1998), “Pangong Tso”, in The Columbia Gazetteer of the World‎^[7], volume 3, New York: Columbia University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 2356, column 2