Ladakh Geography

Ladakh is a high, mountainous cold desert in India's far north, and India's largest union territory. Its settled valleys lie roughly between 32° and 36° N latitude and 75° and 80° E longitude. Ladakh also includes Gilgit-Baltistan in the north-west, under Pakistan's illegal occupation, and Aksai Chin in the north-east, under China's occupation; India's official map shows the whole territory. The districts administered from Leh and Kargil cover about 59,100 sq km (Leh about 45,100 sq km and Kargil 14,036 sq km before the new districts were formed), and since April 2026 they form seven districts: Leh, Kargil, Nubra, Sham, Changthang, Zanskar and Drass.

Ladakh borders China to the north and east, and in the far north-west Gilgit-Baltistan meets Afghanistan's Wakhan corridor. Within India, the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir lies to the west and Himachal Pradesh to the south.

Mountains

Three parallel mountain ranges cross Ladakh from south-east to north-west, the Zanskar, the Ladakh and the Karakoram, with the Great Himalaya along its south-western edge. Most people live in the river valleys between them, at about 2,300 metres and higher, and the land rises to peaks of over 7,000 metres, such as Nun and Kun above the Suru valley. The Siachen glacier lies in the Karakoram in the far north.

High passes link the valleys: Zoji La (3,567 m) on the road from Srinagar to Kargil and Drass, Fotu La (4,192 m) on the road from Kargil to Leh, and Khardung La on the road from Leh to the Nubra valley.

Rivers and valleys

Indus: enters Ladakh from Tibet in the south-east and flows north-west past Leh, between the Ladakh and Zanskar ranges, and on through Kargil district into Gilgit-Baltistan.
Zanskar: drains the Zanskar valley around Padum and cuts north through deep gorges to join the Indus below Leh. In winter its frozen surface becomes the Chadar trek.
Shyok and Nubra: flow through the northern valleys below the Karakoram; the Nubra valley around Diskit is known for its sand dunes and double-humped Bactrian camels.
Suru and Drass: the Suru valley and the Drass valley meet at Kargil, where the two rivers join.

Lakes

Ladakh's high, salty lakes are among its best-known sights. Pangong Tso stretches east from Ladakh into Tibet. Tso Moriri in Changthang, a Ramsar wetland of international importance since 2002, and the Tso Kar wetland complex, a Ramsar site since 2020, are breeding grounds for bar-headed geese and black-necked cranes.

Climate

Ladakh is a cold desert. The Himalaya keeps out the monsoon, so very little rain falls; most precipitation comes as winter snow, about 2 to 5 metres in the villages of Kargil district. Temperatures swing widely between day and night and between seasons, from about +35 °C in summer to as low as -48 °C in winter at Drass, one of the coldest inhabited places on earth. Snow closes the passes for months, and in winter the region is reached mainly by air.

Sources: District Leh and District Kargil official websites, the Administration of Union Territory of Ladakh (the new districts, April 2026) and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (Ramsar sites).