Geographical formation of Tibet

History of a country cannot be understood if knowing nothing about the general aspect of the country and of its inhabitants. So here the history of Tibet plateau is initiated with some of its general information, Tibet is local neighboring to mighty Himalayan ranges with average altitudes range between 4000m and 5000m, numbers of world highest peaks including Mt. Everest are located at its border, so that it deserve the name of roof of the world or third pole of the earth. Tibet represents about a quarter of the Chinese territory with 1/500th of its population. It is thus a country with extreme living conditions and a low inhabited density, due to its high altitude and cold weather, snow capped mountains can be seen throughout the plateau and most of the rivers in the Asian Subcontinent are originated from these snow melt.

The country occupies the site of the sea of Thetis (Tethys), which separated the old Asiatic and Australian continents millions of years ago. The displacement of the tectonic plates broke up the Australian plate in three parts, the northern which formed India was detached and in a rapid displacement towards the north raised the sediments of the sea of Thetis (Tethys) which currently forms the relief of the Tibetan plateau and the Himalayas. The central one formed the current Australian continent and the southern one formed the Antarctic continent. In the shock, basalts and hard stones formed the solid mass of the Himalayas, the sediments which form the Tibetan plateau are not consolidated and the relief is in constant erosion. Part of the country does not have a outlet with the sea water, thus creation of large considerable salt lakes and stocks of salt are used as a basis for foreign trade in Tibet. The largest rivers of India and China, take their headwaters there and these rivers all carry considerable amounts of alluvia that why water runs in reddish color, the silt contributed to the richness of the surrounding countries. It should be noted that all ancient civilizations were born in the same way indeed, whereas the banks of the rivers were not stabilized by human, rivers were covered each year with vast quantities of silt, thus the Tibetan civilizations took place at the bank of Brahmaputra or Yarlung Tsangpo river in Yarlung Valley.