Rutog Town

The Rutog Town[1][2] (Tibetan: རུ་ཐོང་གྲོང་རྡལ, Rutog Chongdai),[3] called Ritu Xian by the Chinese (Chinese: 日土县; pinyin: rìtǔ xiàn),[3] is a town and the seat of Rutog County in far western Tibet Autonomous Region.

This article is about the modern town. For the historic town, see Rudok.
Rutog Town
རུ་ཐོང་གྲོང་རྡལ
Gyaigosang
Rutog Town
Coordinates: 33°23′6″N 79°43′48″E
CountryPeople's Republic of China
ProvinceTibet Autonomous Region
PrefectureNgari Prefecture
CountyRutog County
Population
 • Total1,000
Time zoneUTC+8 (CST)

The town was built around in 1999 by the Chinese administration of Tibet at the former village of Gyaigosang (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་སྒོ་བསངས; Chinese: 杰果桑社区) on the China National Highway 219.[3][4] Prior to that, the seat of Rutog County was at Rudok or Rutog Dzong, about 10 km west, which had been its capital for more than a thousand years.[5][6]

The Rutog Town is located 120 kilometres by road northwest of Shiquanhe (Ali/Ngari) and 10 kilometres south of Lake Pangong.[7]

The town has a population of about 1000 people.

Transportation

The China National Highway 219 connects Rutog to Shiquanhe, the capital of the Ngari Prefecture, Gar Günsa, home of the Ngari Gunsa Airport, and other venues to the southeast. In the north, the highway passes through the disputed Aksai Chin region and goes to Kashgar.[8] The Lonely Planet guide mentioned in 1999 that the visitors coming from Kashgar were required to have a permit to enter Rutog.[4]

Army base

The Lonely Planet guide mentioned in 1999 that the new Rutog Town was built as an Army post.[9] It serves as a base for China's military operations against India along the disputed Sino-Indian border with Ladakh and the associated "salami tactics".[10] Normally able to accommodate 5,000 troops, the camp's capacity was expanded to house 15,000 to 18,000 troops in 2021.[11]

See also

References
  1. Webster's 21st Century World Atlas. Barnes & Noble Books. 1999. p. 94 – via archive.org. Rutog
  2. Complete Atlas Of The World (3 ed.). Penguin Random House. 2016. p. 238 – via archive.org. Rutog
  3. Tibet Autonomous Region (China): Ngari Prececture, KNAB place name database.
  4. Lonely Planet 1999, p. 264: "Further south the road skirts around the eastern end of Lake Palgon [Pangong] and soon after arrives at new Rutok Xian, where a permit checkpoint awaits the unwary. The old town of Rutok, overlooked by a ruined hilltop dzong (fort) and a recently restored monastery, is about 10 km west of the road and a few kilometres to the south of the new town."
  5. Wakefield, E. B. (1961), "A Journey to Western Tibet, 1929" (PDF), The Alpine Journal: 118–133
  6. Chan, Victor (1994), Tibet Handbook, Chico, CA: Moon Publications, p. 980, ISBN 9780918373908 – via archive.org: "After 3 1/2 hr (147 km) [from Ali] reach a road junction. The left fork goes to Rutok Xian, the right to Yecheng."
  7. Lonely Planet 1999, p. 279.
  8. Lonely Planet 1999, pp. 279, 280.
  9. Lonely Planet 1999, p. 279: "It's a checkpoint on this important road and a busy army post with a number of new buildings in the bizarre modern Chinese architecture popping up all over Tibet."
  10. Brahma Chellaney, China’s Himalayan Salami Tactics, Project Syndicate, 9 March 2021.
  11. Rajesh Roy, China, India Move Tens of Thousands of Troops to the Border in Largest Buildup in Decades, The Wall Street Journal, 2 July 2021. ProQuest 2547411498

Bibliography
  • Mayhew, Bradley; Bellezza, John Vincent; Wheeler, Tony; Taylor, Chris (1999), Tibet, Lonely Planet, ISBN 9780864426376 – via archive.org
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