ON THE EXTENT OF THE QINGHAI-XIZANG (TIBET) PLATEAU
青藏高原的范围

The Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, includs mainly the Qinghai province and the Xizang region. It is the highest and greatest plateau on the Earth. But no unanimous idea has been reachad about its exact extent. Based on the characteristics of the major structural landforms of this plateau and the distribution of the plateau surface higher than 4000m above sea level, the author has delimited its extent. More attention has been paid to the eastern boundary that has not been clarified for a long time.The eastern boundary of Qinghai-Xizang Plateau runs along in the middle and northern part of the Hengduan Mts, i, e, along the east and south side of Min Shan - Chaping Shan - Qionglai Shan - Jiajin Shan - Daxue Shan -Jinping Shan - Yulong Shan, It's northeast corner pesses into the east end or Qilian Mts. and western part of Qinling Mts.and its southeast corner mingles with the Hengduan Mts, In these two aveas no obvious structural and ge-omorphological boundaries exist. But according to the distribution of an almost continuous peak plane above 4000m, we can set the northeast boundary of the plateau as lying to the west of the line of Minhe - Kangle - Minxian - Wudu - Wenxian and the southeast boundary as running to the north of Lijiang - Lushui. The southern boundary is situated on the south foot of the Himalayas and the northern boundary on the north foot of western Kun-]un Mts. - Altun Mts. and Qilian Mts, The western boundary of the Plateau merges with Pamir.