Phari or Pagri (; ) is a town in

Yadong County Yadong County (), also known by its Tibetan name Dromo/Tromo County () is a frontier county and trade-market of the Tibet region of China, part of its Shigatse Prefecture. Yadong County is coextensive with the Chumbi valley that extends sout ...

in the

Tibet Autonomous Region The Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet or Xizang, is a Provinces of China, province-level Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China in Southwest China. I ...

, China near the border with

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

. The border can be accessed through a secret road/trail connecting

Tsento Gewog Tsento Gewog ( Dzongkha: བཙན་ཏོ་) is a gewog (village block) of Paro District, Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It ...

in Bhutan () known as Tremo La. the town had a population of 2,121. It is one of the highest towns in the world, being about above sea-level at the head of the

Chumbi Valley The Chumbi Valley, called Dromo or Tromo in Tibetan, is a valley in the Himalayas that projects southwards from the Tibetan plateau, intervening between Sikkim and Bhutan. It is coextensive with the administrative unit Yadong County in the Ti ...

History

Thomas Manning, the first Englishman to reach Lhasa, visited Pagri from 21September until 5November 1811 and had this to say about his room in the town: "Dirt, dirt, grease, smoke. Misery, but good mutton." The Pagri Fortress (''Dzong'') was located here and was important for the government as it stood between Tibet and

. Pagri was a staging area en route to

Gyantse Gyantse, officially Gyangzê Town (also spelled Gyangtse; ; ), is a town located in Gyantse County, Shigatse Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. It was historically considered the third largest and most prominent town in the Tibet region ( ...

and ultimately

Lhasa Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level city, prefecture-level Lhasa (prefecture-level city), Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Regio ...

. Thubten Ngodup, the current

Nechung Oracle The Nechung Oracle is the personal oracle of the Dalai Lama since the second Dalai Lama. The medium currently resides in Nechung Monastery established Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. The Nechung Oracle was the designated head of the Nechung mon ...

, was born in Phari in 1957.

Gallery

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 135-S-06-06-22, Tibetexpedition, Blick auf Phari Dzong.jpg File:Phari Dzong in 1903.jpg, Phari Dzong in 1903 during British Younghusband invasion of Tibet File:Bundesarchiv Bild 135-BB-044-01, Tibetexpedition, Haus und Tibeter in Phari Dzong.jpg, Phari Dzong, 1938 File:India and Pakistan 1 250,000 Phari Dzong.jpg, "Phari Dzong" sheet- topographic map printed by the US Army Map Service, Corps of Engineers, February, 1963

Climate

Owing to its extreme altitude, Pagri has an

alpine climate Alpine climate is the typical weather (climate) for elevations above the tree line, where trees fail to grow due to cold. This climate is also referred to as a mountain climate or highland climate. Definition There are multiple definitions of ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

''ETH'') that is too cold to permit the growth of trees, even though the altitude is still marginally too low for the formation of

permafrost Permafrost is ground that continuously remains below 0 °C (32 °F) for two or more years, located on land or under the ocean. Most common in the Northern Hemisphere, around 15% of the Northern Hemisphere or 11% of the global surface ...

. Example

Mount Fuji , or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highest p ...

in Japan,

Uelen Uelen (russian: Уэлéн; Chukchi: , ''Uvèlèn''; Siberian Yupik: Улыӄ, ''Ulyḳ''; Naukan Yupik: Олыӄ, ''Oleq''; also known as Whalen in older English-language sources and Ugelen on USCGS charts) is a rural locality (a '' selo'') ...

in Russia and

Longyearbyen Longyearbyen (, locally �lɔ̀ŋjɑrˌbyːən "The Longyear Town") is the world's northernmost settlement with a population greater than 1,000 and the largest inhabited area of Svalbard, Norway. It stretches along the foot of the left bank ...

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...

Norway. The winter is severe in spite of the fact that no month has daytime maxima below , and also very dry and long, extending as late as May. Snowfall, however, is rare because of the dryness. Summers, during which the great majority of precipitation occurs, are cool even at their warmest and consistently damp, even though the Himalayas prevent falls from ever being heavy.

References

{{Authority control Populated places in Shigatse Bhutan–China border crossings Township-level divisions of Tibet Yadong County