Nagchu, the 'black river', is the grassland of the southern Changthang at the crossing of the road from Lhasa to Kham with the nomad ranges.
There is no town here until the twentieth century; the gazetteer's point is the modern city. We list it because the nomads of the Changthang need a name on the map where they meet the Ü houses: herders bring wool, salt and butter to the barley country and take back grain and tea. No chief is named.
Who holds it
- Title
- Nomad chiefs of the Nagchu grassland
- Since
- not pinned
- Confidence
- low
No source we could open names the holder for the winter of 1199-1200.
Overlord
none: no one rules Tibet in 1200; the house answers to its own patrons and to the custom of the valleys
How things stand that morning
Seasonal meeting ground; chiefs not known.
Wealth
No source we could open gives figures; the usual base is estates and serfs, herds, pass tolls, trade in salt, wool, tea and barley, and the gifts of patrons.
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.
Council
none known; the place is governed by its lord or house, and no source we could open names a headman or judge
Communities
Tibetan; no other community is attested here
Fairs and markets
none known; pilgrims and caravans meet at the feasts of the temples, but no fair is dated
Walls and castle
none known; the dzong (fort) as an institution of the district lord belongs to the fourteenth century
Trade and crafts
not described by any source we could open
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Gazetteer 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.
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.