Qinghai Lake from space, November 1994

Qinghai Lake or Lake Kokonor (Tibetan: mtsho khri shor rgyal mo and mtsho sngon po; "The Blue Sea", Mongolian: Хөхнуур [Höhnuur], ᠬᠥᠬᠡ ᠨᠠᠭᠤᠷ [Köke Naɣur]; Chinese: 青海湖;, pinyin: Qīnghǎi Hú) is the largest and highest lake in China. Qinghai Lake is also the largest drainless lake in the PRC and is located 3,205 m (10,515 feet) above sea level in a depression of the Tibetan Plateau. Twenty-three rivers and streams empty into Qinghai Lake. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (640x640, 137 KB) Qinghai Lake, China - November 1994 image description here File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (640x640, 137 KB) Qinghai Lake, China - November 1994 image description here File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... The Tibetan language is typically classified as member of the Tibeto-Burman which in turn is thought by some to be a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. ... Pinyin (Chinese: 拼音, pÄ«nyÄ«n) literally means join (together) sounds (a less literal translation being phoneticize, spell or transcription) in Chinese and usually refers to HànyÇ” PÄ«nyÄ«n (汉语拼音, literal meaning: Han language pinyin), which is a system of romanization (phonemic notation and transcription to Roman script) for Standard... A Lake is a body of water surrounded by land. ... For considerations of sea level change, in particular rise associated with possible global warming, see sea level rise. ... This article needs to be wikified. ... Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai Province and Sichuan Province of China lie on the Tibetan Plateau. ...

The lake is 5,694km² (2,278 square miles; some sources say 4,635km²), and 360km (220 miles) in circumference. Despite its salinity, it has an abundance of fish, such as the edible huángyú (湟鱼). Its geographic coordinates are in 37° N 100° E.

Qinghai Lake is sandwiched between Hainan and Haibei Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures in the northeastern namesake province. At its northeast end the "Bird Islands" are located: Cormorant Island and Egg Island, which have been bird sanctuaries of the Qinghai Lake Natural Protection Zone since 1997. It often remains frozen for three months continuously in winter. Prefecture, in the context of China, is used to refer to several unrelated political divisions in both ancient and modern China. ... Qinghai (Chinese: 青海; pinyin: ; Wade-Giles: Ching-hai; Postal System Pinyin: Tsinghai) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, named after the enormous Qinghai Lake (Koko Nor). ...

Splitting

At one time 108 freshwater rivers that emptied into the lake in the 1960s. As of 2005, 85 percent of the river mouths have dried up, including the lake's largest tributary, the Buha River. In between 1959 and 1982, there had been an annual water level drop of 10 centimetres. Unfortunately, measures taken led to an annual rising of 10cm from 1983 to 1989. But as of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported in 1998 of the reappearance of the threat of the lake drying up due to livestock over-grazing, land reclamations and natural causes [1]. It has descended 11.7 percent in the period between 1908 and 2000 [2]. As a result of this, or possibly moving sand dune, higher lake floors were exposed, numerous water bodies were separated from the rest of the main lake around since the 20th century. In the 1960s, the 48.9km² Gǎhǎi (尕海) Lake appeared in the northern part of the lake. During the 1980s, Shādǎo (沙岛) Lake split out in the northwest covers an area of 19.6km², while the northeastern Hǎiyàn (海晏) Lake is 112.5km² [3]. Another 96.7km² daughter lake split off in 2004. In addition, the lake has now split into half a dozen more small lakes at the border. The surface water surface shrank by 312km² [4]. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (中国科学院), formerly known as Academia Sinica (not to be confused with the Academia Sinica currently headquartered in Taipei), is the national academy for the natural sciences of the Peoples Republic of China. ...

External links

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