Pangong Lake Visitor Area 班公湖开放游览区

About Pangong Lake Visitor Area

The Rutog County Party Committee's publicity department gives the lake's Tibetan name as 措木昂拉仁波, meaning long lake of the divine swan, and describes it as an international lake on the boundary between China and the Indian-controlled Kashmir region. On that account its average elevation is 4,242 metres and its area 604 square kilometres, of which 413 square kilometres lie within China and 191 square kilometres within Indian-controlled Kashmir; it runs 150 kilometres from east to west, 100 kilometres of that within China and 50 within Kashmir. These are the county department's own figures and its own account of the boundary, and they are attributed rather than adjudicated here. The lake basin is long and narrow, with a maximum depth of 41 metres, a mean depth of 15 metres and a mean north-south width of 4 kilometres; the department calls it a typical channel-type lake, and says the part within China is the eastern lake area, mainly fresh water with a small part brackish.

Abundant aquatic life draws tens of thousands of water birds, chiefly the brown-headed gull, the bar-headed goose and the ruddy shelduck. The lake holds many islands, among them Mouse Island, Moon Island, Swan Island, Grass Island and Bird Island; Bird Island is the best known of them, is about 300 metres long and more than 200 metres wide, and the department gives May to August as the best season for watching birds. More than ten kinds of fish live in the lake, the common ones being yellow fish and plateau schizothoracin, which grow slowly and usually weigh about half a kilogram, the larger ones two to three kilograms.

Part of the lake is covered by a wetland reserve. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment's register of nature reserves in the Tibet Autonomous Region, current to the end of 2012, lists entry 藏41 as the Pangong Co wetland in Rutog County, with an area of 56,303.22 hectares, the wetland ecosystem as its object of protection, inland wetland as its type, provincial as its level, 20081029 as its date of establishment and forestry as its supervising department.

The catalogue calls this record an open visiting area. None of the cited sources says which parts of the lake or its shore are open, designates a viewpoint, or describes any visiting arrangement, and none is claimed here.

What to look for

• Bird Island, about 300 metres long and more than 200 metres wide, the best known of the lake's islands
• The brown-headed gulls, bar-headed geese and ruddy shelducks that the county publicity department names as the chief water birds
• The lake's salinity gradient, fresh at the eastern end and salt at the western
• The long, narrow channel-type basin, 41 metres deep at most and about 4 kilometres wide on average
• The plateau schizothoracin and the other fish the department records in the lake

Location & getting there

Getting to Pangong Lake Visitor Area

Confirm the visitor entrance and which boat or walking routes operate on your date. Rainfall, water levels and weather can change access.

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