Hoh Xil | |||||||||||
Hoh Xil in August
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Chinese name | |||||||||||
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Simplified Chinese | 可可西里 | ||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 可可西里 | ||||||||||
Literal meaning | Blue ridge (in Mongolic) | ||||||||||
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Tibetan-origin name | |||||||||||
Simplified Chinese | 阿卿贡嘉 | ||||||||||
Traditional Chinese | 阿卿貢嘉 | ||||||||||
Literal meaning | Lord of ten thousand mountains | ||||||||||
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Tibetan name | |||||||||||
Tibetan | ཧོ་ཧོ་ཞི་ལི ཨ་ཆེན་གངས་རྒྱལ |
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Mongolian name | |||||||||||
Mongolian Cyrillic | Хөх шил | ||||||||||
Mongolian script | ᠬᠥᠬᠡ ᠰᠢᠯ | ||||||||||
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Transcriptions | |
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Standard Mandarin | |
Hanyu Pinyin | Kěkěxīlǐ |
Wade–Giles | K'e3k'e3hsi1li3 |
IPA | [kʰɤ̀kʰɤ̀ɕílì] |
Transcriptions | |
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Standard Mandarin | |
Hanyu Pinyin | Āqīnggòngjiā |
Wade–Giles | A1ch'ing1kung4chia1 |
IPA | [átɕʰíŋkʊ̂ŋtɕjá] |
Transcriptions | |
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Wylie | ho ho zhi li a chen gangs rgyal |
THDL | Hohoshili Achenganggyel |
Tibetan Pinyin | Hohoxili Aqênganggyai |
Lhasa IPA | [hohoɕili atɕẽkaŋcɛː] |
Transcriptions | |
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SASM/GNC | Köke sil |
Hoh Xil or Kekexili, (Mongolian for "Blue Ridge", also Aqênganggyai for "Lord of Ten Thousand Mountains"), is an isolated region in the northwestern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China. It is China's least and the world's third-least populated area.
The region covers 83,000 square kilometres at an average elevation of 4,800 metres above sea level, stretches in a meridional (east-west) direction between the Tanggula and Kunlun mountain chains in the border areas of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, northwest China's Qinghai Province and China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The southeastern part of the Hoh Xil, drained by the Chumar River, is one of the major headwater sources of the Yangtze River. The rest of the region is endorheic, with drainage to numerous isolated lakes; this area is sometimes described by hydrologists as the "Hoh Xil lake district". 45,000 square kilometres of the Hoh Xil region, at an average elevation of 4,600 metres, were designated a national nature reserve in 1995.
Hoh Xil is volcanic. Surrounding Unnamed volcanic field contains a number of late-Cenozoic volcanoes. Several Hawaiian-style volcanoes are present in this area. Bamaoqiongzong covers an area of 300 km2 and contains a perfectly preserved edifice NE of the summit and a lava flow that overlies Quaternary lake deposits . The Bamaoqiongzong area contains peralkaline phonolitic and foiditic rocks. Yongbohu contains five dacitic, trachyandesitic and andesitic vents. Qiangbaqian covers a broad area along the southern border of the Kunlun mountain range. A cone in the Kekexili caldera, once thought to be observed in eruption on a satellite photo in 1973, is now considered not to have been historically active.