Roof of the World

Roof of the World is a metaphoric description of the high region in the world, also known as "High Asia". The term usually refers to the mountainous interior of Asia.

The term is also used for parts of this region, for

The name was first applied to the Pamirs.

The British explorer John Wood, writing in 1838, described Bam-i-Duniah (Roof of the World) as a "native expression" (presumably Wakhi), and it was generally used for the Pamirs in Victorian times: In 1876 another British traveller, Sir Thomas Edward Gordon, employed it as the title of a book and wrote in Chapter IX:

Older encyclopedias also used "Roof of the World" to describe the Pamirs:

With the awakening of public interest in Tibet, the Pamirs, "since 1875 ... probably the best explored region in High Asia", went out of the limelight and the description "Roof of the World" has been increasingly applied to Tibet and the Tibetan plateau, and occasionally, esp. in French (), even to Mt. Everest, but the traditional use is still alive.

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