Saga (Tibetan: Kyakyaru) is a town and township, and the seat of

Saga County Saga County (; zh, s=萨嘎县) is a county of the prefecture-level city of Xigazê in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China, bordering Nepal to the west and southwest. Dajia Lake and Jiesa Lake lies in the county. Administration divisions Saga C ...

Shigatse Prefecture Shigatse, officially known as Xigazê () or Rikaze ( zh, s=日喀则, p=Rìkāzé), is a prefecture-level city of the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Its area of jurisdiction, with an area of , corresponds to the histo ...

, in southern

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

. It lies at an altitude of 4,640 metres (15,223 ft.)

Description

Saga ("happy land") is an army town with a Chinese garrison which patrols the whole length of the Tibetan-

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

ese border (and often conducts target practice with machine guns very close to the town). Saga straddles the Dargye Tsangpo river above its junction with the

Brahmaputra River The Brahmaputra is a trans-boundary river which flows through Southwestern China, Northeastern India, and Bangladesh. It is known as Brahmaputra or Luit in Assamese language, Assamese, Yarlung Tsangpo in Lhasa Tibetan, Tibetan, the Siang/Dihan ...

. It is strategically located at the junction of three roads - the

Lhartse The new town of Lhatse or Lhatse Xian, also known as Quxar (, Quxia (), or Chusar, is a small town of a few thousand people in the Tibet Autonomous Region in the valley of the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Lhatse County, southwest of Shigatse and jus ...

road coming from the east, the

Dzongka Dzongka () or Zongga () is a town and the administrative headquarters of Gyirong County in the southwestern Tibet region of China bordering Nepal. Being the administrative headquarters, it is also sometimes referred to as "Gyirong Dzong" or "Gyir ...

road from the south and the Purang and Drongpa roads from the west. Saga is also an important stop-off point for pilgrims and tourists on the way to visiting

Mount Kailash Mount Kailash (also Kailasa; ''Kangrinboqê'' or ''Gang Rinpoche''; ; ; , ) is a mountain in Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It lies in the Kailash Range (Gangdisê Mountains) of the Transhimalaya, in the western part ...

being the last town on the southern route with supplies for travellers, having both a store and a restaurant and several guest houses and hotels.Mayhew and Bradley (2005), pp. 203–204.

Footnotes

References

*Buckley, Michael and Robert Strauss. (1986). ''Tibet: A Survival Kit''. Lonely Planet, St. Kilda, Victoria, Australia. . *Dorje, Gyume. (1999).'' Footprint Tibet Handbook with Bhutan''. 2nd Edition. Footprint Handbooks, Bath, England. . *Mayhew, Bradley and Michael Khohn. (2005). ''Tibet''. 6th Edition. Lonely Planet. .

External links

Wikimapia
{{Xigaze Prefecture Populated places in Shigatse Saga County