Ngari Prefecture in the context of Tibet Autonomous Region

Aksai Chin is a region administered by China partly in He'an County and Hekang County of Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang, and partly in Rutog County of Ngari Prefecture, Tibet, and constituting the easternmost portion of the larger Kashmir region that has been the subject of a dispute between India and China since 1959. China administers the region and claims it as part of the Xinjiang and Tibet autonomous regions. India meanwhile claims it as part of Leh district in the union territory of Ladakh.

Mount Kailash (also Kailasa, Gang Tise and Gang Rinpoche or Kangrinboqê) is a mountain in Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It lies in the Gangdise Shan mountain range of the Transhimalaya, in the western part of the Tibetan Plateau. The peak of Mount Kailash is located at an elevation of 6,638 m (21,778 ft), near the western trijunction between China, India and Nepal.

Mount Kailash is located close to Manasarovar and Rakshastal lakes. The sources of four rivers: Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra, and Ghaghara lie in the vicinity of the region. Mount Kailash is sacred in Bon, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. People from China, India, Nepal, and other countries in the region undertake a pilgrimage to the mountain. The pilgrimage generally involves trekking towards Lake Manasarovar and a circumambulation of Mount Kailash.

Rutog County (Tibetan: རུ་ཐོག་རྫོང་།, Chinese: 日土县) is a county in Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. The county seat is the new Rutog Town, located some 1,140 km (710 mi) or 700 miles west-northwest of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. Rutog County shares a border with India, which is disputed.

The county has a rich history of folk tales, myths, legends, proverbs and folk songs and has many caves, rock paintings and other relics. The Xinjiang-Tibet Highway runs through the Rutog County for 340 km (210 mi). The modern county established in March 1961 covers 74,500 km (28,800 sq mi). It has a very low population density with a population of just over 10,000.

Nagqu (also Naqu, Nakchu, or Nagchu; Tibetan: ནག་ཆུ།, Wylie: Nag-chu, ZWPY: Nagqu; Chinese: 那曲; lit. 'black river') is a prefecture-level city in the north of the Chinese autonomous region of Tibet. On May 7, 2018, the former Nagqu Prefecture was officially declared the sixth prefecture-level city in Tibet after Lhasa, Shigatse, Chamdo, Nyingchi and Shannan. The regional area, covering an area of 450,537 km (173,953 sq mi), is bordered by Bayingolin and Hotan Prefectures of Xinjiang to the north, Haixi, Yushu Prefectures of Qinghai and Chamdo to the east, Nyingchi, Lhasa and Shigatse to the south, Ngari Prefecture to the west. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 462,381. Since its official establishment in 2018, it is the largest prefecture-level city by area in the world, being slightly larger than Sweden.According to the population sampling survey, the resident population of the city by the end of 2024 will be 514,300.

Nagqu contains 89 townships, 25 towns, and 1,283 villages. The main city of Nagqu is along the China National Highway 109, 330 kilometres (210 mi) northeast of Lhasa. Amdo, Nyainrong and Xainza are other towns of note. Extremely rich in water resources, with 81% of Tibet's lakes, covering a total area of over 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq mi), it contains lakes such as Namtso, Siling Lake and rivers such as Dangqu.

Lake Manasarovar (Sanskrit: मानसरोवर, Hunterian: Mānsarovara) also called Mapam Yumtso (Tibetan: མ་ཕམ་གཡུ་མཚོ།, Wylie: ma pham g.yu mtsho, THL: ma pam yu tso; Chinese: 瑪旁雍錯; pinyin: Mǎ páng yōng cuò) locally, is a high altitude freshwater lake near Mount Kailash in Burang County, Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. It is located at an elevation of 4,600 m (15,100 ft), near the western trijunction between China, India and Nepal. It overflows into the adjacent salt-water lake of Rakshastal via the Ganga Chhu. The sources of four rivers: Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra, and Karnali lie in the vicinity of the region.

The lake is sacred in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and the Bon religion. People from India, China, Nepal and other countries in the region undertake a pilgrimage to the region. The pilgrimage generally involves trekking towards Lake Manasarovar and a circumambulation of the nearby Mount Kailash.

Purang County or Burang County(Tibetan: སྤུ་ཧྲེང་རྫོང; Chinese: 普兰县) is an administrative division of Ngari Prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of China. The county seat is Purang Town, known as Taklakot in Nepali. The county covers an area of 12,539 square kilometres (4,841 sq mi), and has a population of 9,657 as of 2010.

An unclimbed mountain is a mountain peak that has not been climbed to the top. Determining which unclimbed peak is highest is often a matter of controversy. In some parts of the world, surveying and mapping are still unreliable. There are no comprehensive records of the routes of explorers, mountaineers, and local inhabitants. In some cases, even modern ascents by larger parties have been poorly documented and, with no universally recognized listing, the best that can be achieved in determining the world's highest unclimbed peaks is somewhat speculative. Most sources indicate that Gangkhar Puensum (7,570 metres, 24,840 ft) on the Bhutan-Tibet border is the tallest mountain in the world that has not been fully summited. Gangkhar Puensum has been off limits to climbers since 1994 when Bhutan prohibited all mountaineering above 6,000 m (20,000 ft), reportedly due to spiritual beliefs.

Unclimbed mountains are sometimes referred to as virgin peaks. Many virgin peaks exist because no one has had access to that mountain due to its geographic isolation or political instability. Some are off limits due to religious beliefs in that country or region which hold that a certain mountain is sacred and should remain inviolate. Of those, Mount Kailash, a mountain in the Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China, with an altitude of 6,638 m (21,778 ft), is one of the most prominent. It lies in the Kailash Range (Gangdisê Mountains) of the Transhimalaya, in the western part of the Tibetan Plateau. Mount Kailash is considered sacred in four religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Bon. Because of its status as a sacred mountain there are annual pilgrimages to see it, but any climbing activities on it are forbidden.

Mangyül Gungthang (Tibetan: མང་ཡུལ་གུང་ཐང, Wylie: mang yul gung thang), simplified Chinese: 芒域贡堂; traditional Chinese: 芒域貢堂; pinyin: mángyù gòngtáng) alternatively known as Ngari Me (Lower Ngari) is the name of a Tibetan kingdom established under Sakya overlordship in Southwest Tibet around 1265. Historically it lies in an area that was an important transit point between the north and south Himalayas, and it was through this route that Padmasambhava and Śāntarakṣita arrived in Tibet. It was founded by a descendant of the Tibetan royal house, Bumdegon (1253–1280) It was one of the thirteen myriarchies (khri skor bcu gsum) ruled by a Sakya lama viceroy appointed by the Yuan court of China.

Chökyi Drönma, the eldest daughter of Thri Lhawang Gyaltsen (1404–1464) and the first Samding Dorje Phagmo – the third highest-ranking person in the Tibetan hierarchy – hailed from the district.

The Tibet Area (Chinese: 西藏地方; pinyin: Xīzàng Dìfāng, also translated as Tibet Region in the 1954 Sino-Indian Agreement) was a province-level administrative division of China in the 20th century. It was de jure created after the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, and nominally includes the Ü-Tsang (central Tibet) and Ngari (western Tibet) areas, but not the Amdo and Kham areas. The territories were merely claimed by the ROC, but actually controlled by an independent Tibet with a government headed by the Dalai Lama in Lhasa. At this time, the scope of de facto independent Tibet included the "Tibet area" and the Chamdo area west of the Jinsha River, which claimed by China. The ROC retreated to Taiwan and lost control of mainland China to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949; afterwards, the ROC continued to claim Tibet.

The PRC annexed Tibet in 1951 and continued to call it Tibet Area. It merged with the Chamdo Region and was transformed to Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965 after the 1959 Tibetan uprising.

Shiquanhe (Chinese: 狮泉河镇; lit. 'Lion Spring River Town'), known in Tibetan as Sênggêkanbab (Tibetan: སེང་གེ་ཁ་འབབ་, Wylie: seng ge kha 'bab, THL: seng gé kha bap) or Sênggêzangbo, is the main town and administrative seat of Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. Shiquanhe is located on the bank of Sênggê Zangbo, the source stream of the Indus River, close to its confluence with the Gartang River.

Pangong Tso or Pangong Lake (Tibetan: སྤང་གོང་མཚོ; Chinese: 班公错; pinyin: Bān gōng cuò; Hindi: पैंगोंग झील, romanized: Paiṅgoṅg jhīl) is an endorheic lake spanning eastern Ladakh and West Tibet situated at an elevation of 4,225 m (13,862 ft). It is 134 km (83 mi) long and divided into five sublakes, called Pangong Tso, Tso Nyak, Rum Tso (twin lakes) and Nyak Tso. Approximately 50% of the length of the overall lake lies within Tibet administered by China, 40% in Indian-administered Ladakh, and the remaining 10% is disputed and is a de facto buffer zone between India and China. The lake is 5 km (3.1 mi) wide at its broadest point. All together it covers almost 700 km. During winter the lake freezes completely, despite being saline water. It has a land-locked basin separated from the Indus River basin by a small elevated ridge, but is believed to have been part of the Indus basin in prehistoric times.