Everest North Face toward Base Camp Tibet Luca Galuzzi 2006 edit 1

Himalaya Range (Sanskrit: literally, "abode of snow", Hindi/Sanskrit: ?????? (wikt:Himalayas), IPA: IPA/h??m??l?j(?)/), or the Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. By extension, it is also the name of a massive mountain system that includes the Karakoram, the Hindu Kush, and other, lesser, ranges that extend out from the Pamir Knot. Together, the Himalayan mountain system is the planets highest, and home to the worlds highest peaks, the Eight-thousanders, which include Mount Everest and K2. To comprehend the enormous scale of this mountain range, consider that Aconcagua, in the Andes, at convert6962mft0 is the highest peak outside Asia, whereas the Himalayan system includes over 100 mountains (List of highest mountains) exceeding m to ft7200abbr=yesprecision=0.

Some of the worlds major rivers, Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Red River (Asia), Xunjiang, Chao Phraya, Irrawaddy River, Amu Darya, Syr Darya, Tarim River and Yellow River, rise in the Himalayas, and their combined drainage basin is home to some 3 billion people (almost half of Earths population) in countries which includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Peoples Republic of China, India, Nepal, Burma, Cambodia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia and Pakistan.

The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia; many Himalayan peaks are sacred in Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. The main Himalaya range runs, west to east, from the Indus river valley to the Brahmaputra river valley, forming an arc km to mi2400abbr=yesprecision=0 long, which varies in width from km to mi400abbr=yesprecision=0 in the western Kashmir (Kashmir region)-Xinjiang region to km to mi150abbr=yesprecision=0 in the eastern Tibet (Tibet Autonomous Region)-Arunachal Pradesh region. The range consists of three coextensive sub-ranges, with the northern-most, and highest, known as the Great or Inner Himalayas.