12 Facts About Leh

Leh was an important stopover on trade routes along the Indus Valley between Tibet to the east, Kashmir to the west and between India and China for centuries.

Leh conquered Western Tibet although his army originally numbered only 300 men.

Royal palace, known as Leh Palace, was built by King Sengge Namgyal, presumably between the period when the Portuguese Jesuit priest, Francisco de Azevedo, visited Leh in 1631, and made no mention of it, and Sengge Namgyal's death in 1642.

Leh Palace is nine storeys high; the upper floors accommodated the royal family, and the stables and storerooms are located on the lower floors.

In 2010, Leh was heavily damaged by the sudden floods caused by a cloud burst.

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The Deputy Commissioner of Leh holds the power of Chief Executive Officer of the LAHDC.

Old town of Leh was added to the World Monuments Fund's list of 100 most endangered sites due to increased rainfall from climate change and other reasons.

Rapid and poorly planned urbanisation of Leh has increased the risk of flash floods in some areas, while other areas, according to research by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network, suffer from the less dramatic, gradual effects of 'invisible disasters', which often go unreported.

The people of Leh are ethnic Tibetan, speaking Ladakhi, a Tibetic language.

The small Christian community in Leh are descendants of converts from Tibetan Buddhism by German Moravian missionaries who established a church at Keylong in Lahaul in the 1860s, and were allowed to open another mission in Leh in 1885 and had a sub-branch in Khalatse.

Leh is connected to the rest of India by two high-altitude roads both of which are subject to landslides and neither of which are passable in winter when covered by deep snows.

State-owned All India Radio Leh has a local station in Leh, which transmits various programs of mass interest.