12 Facts About Tian Shan

Tian Shan, known as the Tengri Tagh or Tengir-Too, meaning the Mountains of Heaven or the Heavenly Mountain, is a large system of mountain ranges located in Central Asia.

The name in Chinese, Tian Shan, is most likely a direct translation of the traditional Kyrgyz name for the mountains, Tenir Too.

Tian Shan is north and west of the Taklamakan Desert and directly north of the Tarim Basin in the border region of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Xinjiang in Northwest China.

In Western cartography as noted by the National Geographic Society, the eastern end of the Tian Shan is usually understood to be east of Urumqi, with the range to the east of that city known as the Bogda Shan as part of the Tian Shan.

Tian Shan are a part of the Himalayan orogenic belt, which was formed by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates in the Cenozoic era.

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The forested Alatau ranges, which are at a lower altitude in the northern part of the Tian Shan, are inhabited by pastoral tribes that speak Turkic languages.

Tian Shan are separated from the Tibetan Plateau by the Taklimakan Desert and the Tarim Basin to the south.

Major rivers rising in the Tian Shan are the Syr Darya, the Ili River and the Tarim River.

Tian Shan have a number of named ranges which are often mentioned separately .

In China the Tian Shan starts north of Kumul City with the U-shaped Barkol Mountains, from about 600 to 400 kilometres east of Urumqi.

In Kyrgyzstan the mainline of the Tian Shan continues as Narat Range from the base of the Borohoros west 570 kilometres to the point where China, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan meet.

The Tian Shan region included important animals like bear, deer and wild boar, which helped to spread seeds and expand the ecological diversity.