The central and northern Changthang (the modern Nyima, Shuanghu and Gerze counties, east of 84.2 E) is the emptiest large piece of country on the sheet: salt lakes, gravel plains, cold deserts and the Kunlun foot.
A few camps follow the grass around the lakes in summer; the north is empty of people. No house, tribe or road of 1200 is named; the Tarim sheet's line runs at about 36.3 to 36.7 N. The tiw sheet draws the western Changthang as peoples west of about 84 E.
Who holds it
- Title
- Chiefs and elders of the nomad camps
- Since
- not pinned
- Confidence
- low
No chief or tribe is named by any source we could open.
What it holds
- Pastures and salt lakes; no owner named
Allies and rivals
The tiw sheet's Changthang west on the west; the Tarim oases beyond the Kunlun on the north.
How things stand that morning
Self-governing herders where there are people at all.
Wealth
Herds, salt, gold dust. No figures.
Military
No standing army; the house or lord calls on retainers, tenants and kin. No troop numbers are given by any source we could open.
Customs
Tibetan-speaking pastoralists (brog pa, in English Changpa, 'northerners') who live in black yak-hair tents and move their herds of yaks, sheep and goats between seasonal pastures; the Ladakhi Changpa raise mainly yaks and goats and sell pashmina (the fibre of the Changra goat) (en Wikipedia, Changpa). No clan, chief or law of the Changthang nomads in 1200 is described by any source we could open.
Assemblies
not described for 1200; the camps follow their own headmen and elders.
Tribute
none known; the nomads trade wool, butter, salt and hides for barley and tea with the farming valleys; no tribute to any house is recorded.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Geography only. Treasury of Lives, the Blue Annals, the Red Annals, Petech, Sorensen and Hazod and Davidson could not be opened in this session (treasuryoflives.org and rigpawiki.org refused the fetch; the archive.org full texts were refused or cut off), so facts marked 'recalled' are from memory of those works and unchecked.
On the map: Modern-unit polygon; it joins the Tarim sheet at the tib/tar line, found by the ownership tool at about 36.3 N at 90 E, 36.7 N at 88 E, 36.3 N at 86 E and 35.8 N at 84 to 85 E.
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.