Ritu County

Ritu County is located in northwest part of Ngari Prefecture, northwestern Tibet, one of the boundary cities of China. It covers an area of 75400 square kilometers, which the water area has 16000 square kilometers, pasture area has 70 million mu (1 mu≈ 0.0007 square kilometers), and agriculture acreage has 7300 mu. There are more than 6300 people living in Ritu County.

Ritu County - Brief Introduction

Ritu is called Rutog in Tibetan language and literally means "the place under the mountain which looks like a gun". This county is throughout by Karakoram Mountain Range and the branch of Mount Kailash, and highly praised as "the roof of the roof of the world". The average elevation of Ritu county is approximately 4500 meters high, which the highest elevation is approximately 6800 meters. It is abundant of mineral resources such as gulch-gold, lead, chromite, borax and table salt, etc.

The grassland farming is the major production in Ritu County, which the famous special local food are butter tea, pelt, wool, cattle cashmere, and fish, etc.

Ritu County - Geography

Ritu County features plateau lake basin area throughout by Karakoram Mountain Range and the branch of Mount Kailash. Due to the dry climate and poor effect of running water, the terrain of Ritu County is higher in south part and north part than the middle part. There is the huge lowest catchment low-lying land along Pangongtso Lake and Nu River, which is surrounded by numerous of lake basin and small low-lying lands.

Ritu County - Pangongtso Lake

Inland lakes are the characteristic of Ritu County, which the famous attraction is Pangongtso Lake. Pangongtso Lake is situated approximately 13 kilometers away from Ritu County. It stretches about 110 kilometers from the east to the west, about 4 kilometers in width from the south to the north. It covers a total area of 604 square kilometers, which 413 square kilometers are available in China. The water surface is 4241 meters high and the deepest water is 41.3 meters.

The exquisite snow mountains, fresh air, blue and closer sky, white clouds, and large numbers of plateau birds, etc, all of the amazing sceneries attract numerous people from home and abroad to visit. The famous plateau birds island is available in the Pangongtso Lake, which is the best bird viewing location during the months of May to September.

Ritu County - Climate

It belongs to plateau subfrigid monsoon semi-arid climate zone and features lower pressure. Meanwhile, there is much strong sun radiation but little rainfall. The average temperature in the coldest month is approximately -22.1?, while the average temperature in the hottest month is approximately 13.6?. The frostless duration is 95 days and the mean annual precipitation is about 73.4mm.

Ritu County - Transportation

Xinjiang - Tibet Highway is available throughout the whole county and leads to Lion Spring River Town, Shigatse, Lhasa, and Xinjiang, it is about 340 kilometers long. The highways are available in each villages in Ritu County.

Ritu County - Folk Custom

A type of ancient dancing has been successfully succeeded in Ritu County, which called Xepaxema. The dancing is said to the memory of a great officer of Gesar King. There are 17 couples dancing, which the men wear the warrior clothes and the women wear gorgeously.