Tian_Shan

Tian Shan

The Tian Shan (天山; Pinyin: Tiān Shān; "celestial mountains"), also commonly spelled Tien Shan, is a mountain range located in Central Asia.

The Chinese name for Tian Shan or Tien Shan, may in turn go back to a Xiongnu name, qilian (祁连) reported by the Shiji as the last place where they met and had their baby as in of the Yuezhi, which has been argued to refer to the Tian Shan rather than to the range 1,500 km further the east now known by this name. A nearby mountain range, the Tannu-Ola Mountains (Tuvan: Таңды-Уула Tangdy-Uula), also bears a synonymous name ("heaven/celestial mountains" or "god/spirit mountains").

Geography

The range lies to the north and west of the Taklamakan Desert in the border region of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of western China. In the south it links up with the Pamir Mountains. It also extends into the Chinese province of Xinjiang and into the northern areas of Pakistan, where it joins the Hindu Kush.

In Western cartography, the eastern end of the Tian Shan is usually understood to be just west of Ürümqi, while the range to the east of that city is known as the Bogda Shan. However, in Chinese cartography, from the Han Dynasty to the present, the Tian Shan is also considered to include the Bogda Shan and Barkol ranges.

The Tian Shan are a part of the Himalayan orogenic belt which was formed by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates in the Cenozoic era. They are one of the longest mountain ranges in Central Asia, stretching some 2,800 km eastward from Tashkent in Uzbekistan.

The highest peak in the Tian Shan is Jengish Chokusu which, at , is also the highest point in Kyrgyzstan and is on the border with China. The Tian Shan's second highest peak, Khan Tengri (Lord of the Spirits), at 7,010 m, straddles the Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan border. Mountaineers class these as the two most northerly peaks over 7,000 m in the world.

The Torugart Pass, high, is located at the border between Kyrgyzstan and China's Xinjiang province. The forested Alatau ranges, which are at a lower altitude in the northern part of the Tian Shan, are inhabited by pastoral tribes speaking Turkic languages. The major rivers rising in the Tian Shan are the Syr Darya, the Ili river and the Tarim River. The Aksu Canyon is a notable feature in the northwestern Tian Shan.

One of the first Europeans to visit and the first to describe the Tian Shan in detail was the Russian explorer Peter Semenov in the 1850s.

Ecology

The Tian Shan holds important forests of Schrenk's Spruce (Picea schrenkiana) at altitudes of over 2,000 m; the lower slopes have unique natural forests of wild Walnuts and Apples.

In Popular Culture

The Tian Shan is featured in Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, a computer game released in 1999. Indiana Jones must travel there to obtain the first of the four parts that compose the "Infernal Machine".

Dan Simmons' book The Rise of Endymion includes a planet named Tien Shan. It's a world where the only habitable areas are a series of mountain ranges surrounded by a poisonous sea. The mountains are inhabited by humans who emigrated from the same areas of the Tien Shan on Old Earth.

In the anime series Eureka Seven, a similar mountain range (possibly even the same one), is featured, and is an important location towards the end of the series.

Chinese religion

In Daoism the Goddess of the West is believed to guard the peach trees of immortality in the Tian Shan.

Tourism

For those interested in trekking and camping, every oblast offers different attractions and challenges. Some of the most popular locations from camping are southern Osh, the area between Naryn City and the Torugart pass, and the mountains and glaciers surrounding Karakol in Issyk-Kul. Local guides and porters can be hired from many different tour companies in Bishkek and in the oblast capitals.

Skiing is still in its infancy as a tourism industry, but there is one fairly cheap and well-equipped base about a half-hour from Bishkek. In the Karakol Valley National Park, outside Karakol, there is also a ski base with three T-bars and rental equipment available of good quality.

Gallery

Footnotes

References

The Contemporary Atlas of China. 1988. London: Marshall Editions Ltd. Reprint 1989. Sydney: Collins Publishers Australia.
The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World. Eleventh Edition. 2003. Times Books Group Ltd. London.