The Chagai Hills is a range of

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies un ...

hills in the

Chagai District Chaghi District ( bal, ; urd, ), also known as Chaghi District, is the largest district of Pakistan by area, located in the north west corner of Balochistan, Pakistan. Demographics At the time of the 2017 census the district had a population ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

Balochistan province Balochistan (; bal, بلۏچستان; ) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southwestern region of the country, Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan by land area but is the least populated one. It shares land ...

Location

The Chagai Hills lie between 28' 46" to 29' 34" N and 63' 18" to 64' 50" in a desert area in the northernmost part of

north of Pakistan's Ras Koh Hills and south of Afghanistan's Helmand and Nimruz provinces.

Topography

The Chagai Hills are granite mountains, which, at their highest point, rise to a height of 2640 m

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance ( height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as '' orthometric heights''. Th ...

. They stretch over an area that is approximately 175 km in length and 95 km in width.

Climate

The Chagai Hills lie in an arid zone, which is outside the main

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscil ...

belt. The region receives an average of 4 inches (102 mm) annually. The temperature is extreme: very hot in summer and very cold in winter. The average minimum temperature is 2.4 °C (36.3 °F) in January and the average maximum temperature is 42.5 °C (108.5 °F) in July.

Nuclear tests

The Chagai Hills were not the location of Pakistan's

Chagai-I Chagai-I is the code name of five simultaneous underground nuclear tests conducted by Pakistan at 15:15 hrs PKT on 28 May 1998. The tests were performed at Ras Koh Hills in the Chagai District of Balochistan Province. Chagai-I was Pakistan' ...

nuclear tests of 28 May 1998, which were at the Ras Koh Hills, an entirely different range of hills to the south of the Chagai Hills, separated from them by a large valley. However, confusion may arise because widespread reporting prior to the actual explosion mentioned the Chagai Hills region, and because both the Chagai Hills and the Ras Koh Hills are situated in the

References

{{Reflist Hills of Pakistan Chagai District Landforms of Balochistan (Pakistan)