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Located between China and India, Pakistan, Buthan, and Nepal is the world’s highest chain of mountains, The Himalayas. 

The Himalayas aren’t just very tall, picturesque mountains that are the home of Mount Everest. They are perhaps the most important mountain range on Earth. 

The Himalayas serve as the source of several of the world’s most important rivers. It is responsible for weather patterns throughout much of Asia, and it has served an important role throughout history in trade, religion, and geopolitics. 

Learn more about the Himalayas, how they were formed and the role they play in the world today on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

The Himalayas are located in the heart of Asia. They run along the border between China and India and extend into northern Pakistan. The mountainous nations of Nepal and Bhutan are also located within the Himalayas. 

The Himalayas separate the broad and high Tibetan Plateau to the north and the North Indian River Plain to the south, in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.

The range extends in an arc roughly from the northwest to the southeast and is about 2,400 kilometers or 1,500 miles long.

It is, of course, famous for hosting some of the highest mountain peaks in the world, including Mount Everest. Over half of the 100 highest mountain peaks in the world are located in the Himalayas.

When you zoom into the Himalayas, you will see that it isn’t a single mountain range. There are actually four separate parallel ranges. The Tibetan Himalayas are in the north. Next comes the Central Himalayas, where the highest peaks are located. South of that is the Lower Himalayan Range, and finally, the Sivalik Hills.

Any general discussion of the Himalayas should start with geology and the process by which the mountain range was created. 

The Himalayas, as with many geological phenomena on the planet, have their origin in plate tectonics. 

About 50 million years ago, the Indian Plate, which is home to most of the Indian subcontinents, began to collide with the larger Eurasian plate. This was the result of the Indian Plate slowly moving north. 

As the plates collided, the Indian plate began to slowly subduct under the Eurasian Plante. This resulted in a massive uplift of land along the boundary, which is what we know today as the Himalayas. Much of the rock in the Himalayas is sedimentary rock, which initially formed in the ancient Tethys Ocean. 

The Tethys Ocean was the ocean that sat between India and Eurasia and eventually disappeared after the collision. 

The process of subduction of the Indian Plate and the uplift of land above it is an active process that is still going on today. On average, the Himalayas are getting five millimeters taller each year. That means over the course of an average human lifetime, the Himalayas will actually be 4/10ths of a meter or almost 16 inches taller when someone is 80 compared to when they were born. 

The fact that the Himalayas are so tall is evidence of the fact that they are relatively young for a mountain range. Other notable mountain ranges around the world such as the Rockies, the Andes, the Alps, and the Urals are many times older than the Himalayas. Because they are older, they have had more time to erode, which is why they are not as tall anymore. 

These enormous mountains have had huge implications for almost everything in the region. 

For starters, the Himalayas are responsible for the climate on each side of the range. 

On the north, the mountains largely block cold winds that come out of Central Asia. This results in a colder-than-normal climate north of the Himalayas as the cold air is trapped. Likewise, it allows northern India to be warmer than it otherwise would be, given its latitude. 

The Himalayas also have an enormous influence on rain and precipitation. 

In the summer, warm, moist air from the south moves over India and hits a wall when it reaches the mountains. The warm, moist air is pushed up the mountains, where it encounters colder temperatures. The colder temperatures cause the moist air to condense and come down as rainfall. 

This is the cause of the monsoons, which are so important to India. 

The summer monsoon, which occurs from June to September, brings about 75% of India’s annual rainfall, which is essential for the irrigation of crops such as rice and wheat which form the backbone of the Indian agricultural system.

The Himalayas make the monsoons and the monsoons make India. Without the Himalayas, India would be a much drier and very different place. 

The flip side of this is that the Himalayas create a rain shadow on their northern side, significantly reducing the amount of precipitation that reaches the Tibetan Plateau. As a result, the Tibetan Plateau and regions like the Taklamakan and the Gobi Deserts to the north of the Himalayas are much drier.

The Tibetan Plateau experiences a cold desert climate due to its high elevation and the rain shadow effect. Winters are harsh, with very low temperatures and limited snowfall.

However, there is snowfall in the mountains. The Himalayas contain the largest mass of ice and snow in the world between the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. 

Every spring, much of that snow mass melts, and all of that water is the basis for several of the world’s greatest rivers. There are 19 major rivers that have their headwaters in the Himalayas. Three of the largest rivers are the Indus, the Brahmaputra, and the Ganges.

These rivers create the North Indian River Plain, which I previously mentioned. This plain extends from Bangladesh in the east, up through Northern India, and into Pakistan.

This area is one of the cradles of early civilization. The Indus Valley civilization was one of the greatest bronze age cultures. 

The three major rivers I’ve listed by name will all be the subject of a future episode, but for the purpose of this episode, the key takeaway is that they all have their headwaters in the Himalayas. 

There are a few odd things about these rivers. The first is that some geologists think they might be older than the Himalayas. The rivers probably began when the plates came together. Then, as the mountains began to form, they just kept cutting channels through them. 

Another interesting fact is that the Himalayas do not form a continental divide because the rivers cut through the mountain range, creating great gorges and canyons. 

As important as the Himalayas are to the geography and geology of the region, they are just as important to the society, culture, politics, and religions of the region. 

India and China are two of the great, ancient civilizations in the world. Yet, strangely, they had little contact, given their proximity to each other.  The Himalayas served as a giant wall between the two civilizations that resulted in little interaction. The mountains served as a natural limit to each civilizations reach. 

The most significant contact between the two countries actually took place via the sea. 

There were routes through the Himalayas, which were considered part of the Silk Road, but they were extremely difficult to navigate, and what could be brought through the mountain passes was limited. 

The Himalayas also have a central point in many of the religions of the area. 

They are considered sacred in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. They are home to many important pilgrimage sites, such as the Hindu Temples at Kedarnath, Badrinath, Amarnath, and Mount Kailash, which is believed to be the abode of Lord Shiva.

Tibetan Buddhism is the dominant religion on the other side of the mountains. It is primarily found on the Tibetan plateau and in the Himalayas. There are several religious practices that that they follow which are closely linked to the mountains.

In addition to many sacred mountains and lakes, many Tibetan Buddhists also practice Jhator, also known as Sky Burial.  

In this traditional funerary practice, the deceased’s body is left exposed on mountaintops to be consumed by vultures. This practice reflects the Tibetan Buddhist belief in the impermanence of life and the cycle of rebirth.

Before the development of the major religions, numerous myths and legends were associated with the Himalayas. In various South Asian mythologies, the Himalayas are often depicted as the dwelling place of gods and mythical creatures.

While the Himalayas have traditionally served as a barrier between India and China, it never exactly served as an official border until the 20th century. No one had ever conducted an extensive survey before that. 

The first proposed definite borders were the 1865 Johnson Line and the 1914 McMahon Line. The British created the border, and it was the agreed-upon line between British India and Tibet, which at the time was not a part of China. 

China, however, objected to the border. 

That became an issue in the early 1950s after the Chinese Communist Revolution and the 1950 Chinese invasion of Tibet. 

China and a now fully independent India, objected to each other’s border claims and those objections eventually spilled into overt military conflict in 1967. There were additional military skirmishes between India and China over disputed regions in 1987, 2017, and 2020. 

There are two major regions which are disputed.

The first is Aksai Chin, which is claimed by India but controlled by China. India claims that the area is part of their territory of Jammu and Kashmir. It is approximately 38,000 square kilometers and about the size of Buthan. It is sparsely populated with fewer than 10,000 people living there. 

The second is Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian state located in the northeast of the country, which China claims. It has a population of 1.3 million people and an area approximately the size of Austria. 

The claims of both India and China are based on the 19th-century borders set by the British.

In addition to the major disputes between India and China, there are some small border disputes in the Himalayas between India and Nepal and China and Buthan. 

Living in the Himalayas is extremely difficult and is responsible for its extremely low population density. 

Nepal has a population of 23 million people. Still, the vast majority of them are located in the south of the country near the Indian Border, which is the thin strip of land south of the Himalayas or within the Kathmandu Valley. 

Getting anywhere in the Himalayas is extremely difficult. The roads are dangerous, often with no safety features preventing a vehicle from going off the side of the road. Getting to a neighboring village might take hours, even if you can see the village from your own. The extreme gorges require you to travel enormous vertical distances to travel short horizontal distances. 

Due to the rocky conditions in the mountains, the soil is very poor, so the crops that can be grown are very limited. The altitude and the winters also limit the seasons where things can be grown. Because of the mountains, terraces are required to grow most crops. 

A limited amount of cattle are also raised in the region because they can graze on marginal land that can grow little other than grass. 

The Himalayas are one of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring mountain ranges on Earth. However, their significance extends beyond mere physical beauty. The weather systems and the rivers created by the Himalayas are critical to over a billion people. 

All of that is due to the multimillion year process of India colliding into Eurasia. 

The Executive Producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. 

The associate producers are Ben Long and Cameron Kieffer. 

Today’s review comes from listener Eyesopen52 on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write:

Excited!

I am so excited to have found your podcast! Actually my daughter told me about it. and since then I have passed it on to so many others. Thank you for updating my knowledge on some things and completely Amazing me and teaching me on other things. Best Podcast Ever!

Thanks, Eyesopen52! Your daughter has good taste. You must have raised her right. I appreciate spreading the word about the podcast. As there is no algorithm like there is on YouTube, word of mouth is how podcasts have spread.

Remember that if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read on the show.