Kawagarbo

Kawagarbo
East Face of Kawagarbo
Highest point
Elevation	6,740 m (22,110 ft)
Prominence	2,232 m (7,323 ft)
Listing	Ultra
Coordinates	28°26′18″N 98°41′00″E / 28.43833°N 98.68333°E / 28.43833; 98.68333Coordinates: 28°26′18″N 98°41′00″E / 28.43833°N 98.68333°E / 28.43833; 98.68333
Geography
Kawagarbo Location in Yunnan
Location	Tibet/Yunnan, China
Parent range	Meili Xueshan, Hengduan Mountains
Climbing
First ascent	unclimbed (as of 2003)

Kawa Garbo or Khawa Karpo (Tibetan: ཁ་བ་དཀར་པོ།, ZYPY: Kawagarbo; also transcribed as Kawadgarbo, Khawakarpo, Moirig Kawagarbo, Kawa Karpo or Kha-Kar-Po), as it is known by local residents and pilgrims, or Kawagebo Peak (Chinese: 卡瓦格博), is the highest mountain in the Chinese province of Yunnan. It is located on the border between Dêqên County, Yunnan, and the counties of Zogang and Zayü of the Tibet Autonomous Region. It rises about 20 kilometres (12 mi) west of Shengping (升平镇), the seat of Dêqên County, which lies on China National Highway 214. What is now Dêqên County has been part of Yunnan since the 1720s, when the current border with Tibet was established by the early Qing Dynasty. Kawagarbo is one of the most sacred peaks in the Tibetan world and is often referred to as Nyainqênkawagarbo to show its sacredness.

Kawagarbo is the high point in a range of high peaks that are generally referred to by Tibetans also as Kawagarpo. A mapping error by the Chinese army during the 1950s transcribed the name for a lower range of mountains to the north on a much larger area that also included Kawagarbo. The name of this lower range in Tibetan is Menri (Wylie system; Sman-ri in the Wade–Giles system; name means Mountains of Medicinal Herbs), but is most widely known by its Chinese transliteration, Meili Xue Shan (梅里雪山 or Meili Snow Mountain). This is the name most widely applied to the range by Chinese and Western sources. The Meili range is a small massif of the much more extensive Hengduan Shan, the major north-south trending complex of mountains lying along the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau in eastern Tibet, northwestern Yunnan, western Sichuan, and far northern Myanmar. The Meili Xue Shan forms part of the divide between the Salween (Nujiang) and Mekong (Lancangjiang) rivers.