Tibet River Map: Major Rivers, Sources and Travel Regions

Travelers cross the Yarlung Tsangpo several times on a Lhasa–Shigatse drive and rarely register it as more than a wide, pale river. It is Tibet’s longest major river, and the valleys it and its tributaries cut hold most of the plateau’s towns, farms and roads. This page maps the major rivers, where they start, what they are called downstream, and the regions where you see them.

Tibet River Map: Quick Facts

Tibet River Map: Where the Major Rivers Flow

Read the map by direction, because that is how the rivers behave. The Yarlung Tsangpo takes the south, running west to east before turning hard south at the eastern end; the Lhasa River joins it in the middle, and the Niyang and Parlung drain the forested east. West of Shigatse the pattern reverses around Mount Kailash, and north of the Nyenchen Tanglha the Salween and the Mekong run southeast off the plateau.

Tibet’s Major Rivers at a Glance

Six rivers anchor the river geography covered on this page.

Lengths are for the section inside China unless marked as a total (Chinese survey data, checked October 2026).

Southern Tibet: The Yarlung Tsangpo River

Southern Tibet is shaped by one river. The Yarlung Tsangpo runs across the south between the Himalaya and the Gangdise range, and the plateau’s main farming belt sits inside its valley.

Tracing it west to east shows where two of its major tributaries join the main river.

Yarlung Tsangpo: Source and the Upper Course

The Yarlung Tsangpo rises in the far west of Shigatse: Chinese surveys identify the glacier country around Jema Yangzom, in Zhongba County, as the river’s main source, with other determinations tracing the farthest headwater higher up the same valley. The source area sits at roughly 5,500 m, and the upper course that leaves it is a braided, shallow stream spread across wide grassland, with marsh and pasture where a traveler expects a defined channel. The Tibet glacier map covers the ice fields these rivers rise from.

Tibetans call this course the Damqog Zangbo, the Horse Spring River; in the traditional four-spring-river geography associated with the Kailash region, that makes it the first of the four. It is herding country, and travelers on the western route see it as a broad grey band across open pasture between Saga and Zhongba.

Yarlung Tsangpo Through Shigatse, Shannan and the Lhasa Region

East of Lhatse the river changes character as it crosses the rest of Shigatse and Shannan and passes the southern edge of the Lhasa region on its way toward Nyingchi. The middle course runs through a valley that opens and closes like a string of beads. The widest and most useful section lies between Qushui, Gonggar, Zhanang and Zedang, where the valley floor reaches several kilometers across and holds most of Tibet’s grain farming.

This is the stretch travelers actually know. The Lhasa–Shigatse highway crosses the river more than once, the Lhasa River joins it at Qushui, and the Nyang Chu — a different river from the eastern Niyang — comes in at Shigatse after draining the Gyantse valley. If you have driven the southern route you have seen the Yarlung Tsangpo at close range — most likely from the Qushui bridge area.

One River, Many Names: Tsangpo, Siang and Brahmaputra

Yes, the Yarlung Tsangpo and the Brahmaputra are the same river; the name changes with the territory. Tsangpo is the Tibetan word for a major river, so the whole river carries that name inside Tibet. It leaves at the eastern end of the Himalaya as the Siang, becomes the Brahmaputra on the plains, then the Jamuna in Bangladesh, and reaches the Bay of Bengal.

What surprises people is where the turn happens. For most of its length the river runs west to east, unusual for a major Asian river; it then swings north around Namcha Barwa and drops south through the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon — about 504 km long and close to 6,009 m at its deepest, the deepest river canyon on earth. Most of that gorge is closed to travelers.

Central Tibet: The Lhasa River

Central Tibet belongs to the Lhasa River. It is one of the Yarlung Tsangpo’s major tributaries, and it is why the capital sits where it does.

From the Nyenchen Tanglha range, the river runs down to the confluence.

Lhasa River: Source and Course

The Lhasa River rises on the southern slopes of the Nyenchen Tanglha range, north of the city, and runs about 551 km before it joins the Yarlung Tsangpo. Its Tibetan name, Kyichu, is usually translated as the happy river, and it is the water behind most of what visitors associate with Lhasa: the willow-lined banks below the Potala, the fields around Dagze.

For most of its length it is a working river. The upper course runs through hill country and wide basins, and the last stretch from Dagze to Qushui is a broad, slow valley.

The Lhasa River and the Shape of the Capital

Lhasa exists in the form it does because of this river. The city sits on the valley floor at about 3,650 m, where the relatively broad river plain has supported settlement and agriculture for centuries. The old town and the Barkhor sit on the northern bank; the modern city has spread across both sides.

That matters practically: the broad valley keeps the road from Gonggar Airport to Lhasa straightforward, without the high passes found on many other Tibet routes. Our Tibet altitude map sets out how the city’s elevation compares with the passes around it.

Where Travelers See the Lhasa River

You meet the Lhasa River within an hour of landing. The road in from Gonggar Airport crosses the Yarlung Tsangpo and then follows the Lhasa River valley up to the city. Inside Lhasa, the riverside promenades below the Potala are the easy places to walk beside it; on the east side, the road out toward Ganden Monastery tracks the valley upstream.

The other reliable view is at Qushui, southwest of the city, where the Lhasa River joins the Yarlung Tsangpo. It is a five-minute stop on the road to Shigatse, best timed for daylight, since the valley sits low and shadows arrive early.

Eastern Tibet: The Niyang River and Nyingchi

Eastern Tibet is where the plateau breaks into forest, and the Niyang River makes the difference visible. This valley is greener, lower and wetter than the land an hour west of it.

Between Mila Mountain and Nyingchi, that corridor is what the section follows.

Niyang River: The River Through Nyingchi

The Niyang River begins on the western side of Mila Mountain, at about 5,000 m, and runs 307.5 km east to Nyingchi. In that distance it drops roughly 2,273 m, which is why the valley shifts from alpine pasture to mixed forest along a single day’s drive.

Mila Mountain marks the watershed: west of the pass the water drains into the Lhasa River basin, east of it into the Niyang basin. The rivers tell you which side of the plateau you are on.

Niyang River and the Nyingchi Travel Region

Nyingchi lives along its river. The G318 from Lhasa follows the valley almost the whole way, so the drive east is a river drive: past Gongbo’gyamda, along the water, into Bayi. At the marked viewpoints above the river it runs clear and green for much of the year.

The valley’s lower altitude — around 3,000 m at Nyingchi against 3,650 m in Lhasa — is why this region gets forests instead of grassland, and why the landscape changes so sharply on the drive east from Lhasa. Basum Tso, the lake on this river system, lies in the Ba River valley; our Tibet lakes map covers the eastern lakes.

Where the Niyang Meets the Yarlung Tsangpo

The Niyang ends just east of Nyingchi, where it joins the Yarlung Tsangpo, upstream of the great turn the bigger river makes around Namcha Barwa. Downstream of the confluence it swings hard south into the Great Bend and the Grand Canyon. Namcha Barwa, 7,782 m, stands right over that turn, which is why the Tibet mountains map treats the bend as one of the four key mountain regions.

Farther east, the G318 continues toward Bomi and Ranwu along the Parlung Tsangpo valley, adding another major river landscape to the Nyingchi route and the sense that the whole system is falling away south.

Western Tibet: The Rivers Around Kailash

Western Tibet is where the rivers leave. Around Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar several major headwater systems lie close together, sending water off the plateau in different directions and to different seas. In Tibetan tradition this is the country of four “spring rivers”, and Ngari is where their names come from: Sengge Zangbo, Langqen Zangbo, Damqog Zangbo and Mapam Zangbo — the lion, elephant, horse and peacock springs.

Two of the four matter most for travel planning, and both rise in the wider Kailash–Manasarovar region.

Indus (Sengge Zangbo): The River That Runs Northwest

The Indus rises in the highlands northeast of Mount Kailash, in the spring and glacier country Tibetans call Sengge Khabab, the lion’s mouth. Chinese source studies put the headwater in Geji County, at 5,469.8 m. In Tibetan the river is the Sengge Zangbo, the Lion Spring River, and it looks unremarkable at first — around Shiquanhe it is shallow, braided and easy to step across.

What it becomes is another matter. It runs about 405 km inside China, through the dry, sparsely settled country of western Ngari, then crosses into Ladakh and runs on to the Arabian Sea. Its full course is roughly 3,180 km, the longest of the rivers that rise in western Tibet. Travelers on the western G219 see one more dry valley in a landscape of dry valleys.

Sutlej (Langqen Zangbo): From the Kailash Region Toward India

The Sutlej starts almost next door, near Rakshas Tal on the western side of the Kailash region, and heads west. In Tibet it is the Langqen Zangbo, the Elephant Spring River, and it runs through Zanda County past the earth forest before crossing into India, where it eventually joins the Indus system after a course of about 1,450 km.

This is the more visible of the two rivers, because the road to the Zanda earth forest and the Guge Kingdom follows its valley. The river cut the landscape people come to photograph — one of the few places in western Tibet where a river, a road and a set of ruins line up in one view.

Why So Many Rivers Begin Near Kailash

The four names carry a claim: that these great rivers rise from Kailash itself. Two of them, the Indus and the Sutlej, do rise in the Kailash region. The other two run further: the Mapam Zangbo drains south into Nepal, and the Horse Spring River is the upper course of the Yarlung Tsangpo, sourced about 200 km east in Zhongba County.

The geography behind the tradition is real, though. This part of Ngari is a high, glaciated divide where several major drainage systems meet, and which side of a ridge a stream falls on decides whether its water drains to the Arabian Sea or to the Bay of Bengal. Pilgrims have been reading that landscape for centuries. See the Mount Kailash map for the mountain itself.

Northern Tibet: The Great River Headwaters and Beyond

Northern Tibet is the other side of the divide. Once you cross the Nyenchen Tanglha range toward Namtso and the Changtang, water stops running east toward the Yarlung Tsangpo and starts running southeast off the plateau. Asia’s great rivers take their first water from this zone and the ranges just beyond it.

What follows is the headwater zone and where each river ends up.

Salween (Nu River): The Headwater That Turns South

The Salween’s upper course runs through the Nagqu area of northern Tibet before reaching Chamdo and continuing into Yunnan, where it forms part of the Three Parallel Rivers region. Chinese maps call it the Nu River, and it reaches the Andaman Sea after a course of roughly 3,289 km.

Most travelers only meet the Salween on an eastern Tibet journey: the useful stretches lie in the deep southeast, where roads are long and slow. It remains a name on the map rather than a destination, but its upper course belongs to the southeast-flowing river systems of eastern Tibet.

Mekong (Lancang): The Longest River Born on the Plateau

The Mekong’s headwaters rise in the Tanggula range, and inside China the river is called the Lancang. It gathers its main tributaries around Chamdo and then runs south out of Tibet through Yunnan into Southeast Asia, passing through six countries before it reaches the South China Sea.

At roughly 4,350 km it is the longest river with sources on the Tibetan plateau. Travelers meet it in Chamdo and again on the eastern overland route, where the G318 runs close to the valleys. It is also the clearest example of a pattern worth remembering: rivers that start on this plateau do not stay in it.

Yangtze and Yellow River Sources: Just Beyond Tibet

Two of China’s largest rivers rise on the Tibetan plateau but outside the Tibet Autonomous Region. The Yangtze begins at the Geladaindong massif in the Tanggula range in Qinghai, where its first channel is the Tuotuo River; the Yellow River starts in the Bayan Har mountains, also in Qinghai. Neither is reachable on a normal Tibet itinerary.

This is the distinction worth carrying away from the page: “Tibetan plateau” is a landform and “Tibet Autonomous Region” is an administrative area. Most of the great rivers on this map start on the plateau, but the plateau extends into Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan. The Tibet terrain map takes up that wider landform.

Major River Systems and Where Travelers See Them

This section flips the view: instead of following each river from source to mouth, it follows the travel regions and names the water you see in each. Route lengths and days are set out on the Tibet travel route map.

Lhasa and the Lhasa River Valley

In Lhasa the river is background rather than a sight. The Kyichu valley is broad and flat enough to hold a city of this size, and the river shows up at the edges of a normal itinerary: the riverside walks in town, the road east toward Ganden.

Shannan and the Yarlung Valley

Shannan is the river-and-history combination. The Yarlung Tsangpo runs through its widest, most farmed stretch here, and Zedang sits on the bank with Samye and Tradruk a short drive away. The Qushui–Zedang section is one of the easiest places to combine the river with a Lhasa–Shannan itinerary.

Nyingchi and the Forested River Valleys

Water is almost continuous on this drive: the Niyang valley carries the G318 east from Lhasa, and the Parlung Tsangpo takes it on toward Bomi and Ranwu. The overland Sichuan to Tibet G318 tour runs the same corridor from Chengdu into Lhasa.

Shigatse and the Southern Plateau

The city sits near the confluence of the Yarlung Tsangpo and the Nyang Chu, which drains the Gyantse valley, and the highway crosses water repeatedly between Lhasa and Shigatse. On the Everest route, the main Yarlung Tsangpo valley becomes less central after Lhatse, as the road turns toward the higher plateau and the Everest region. The Lhasa Everest Base Camp tour covers this ground in both directions.

Ngari and the Kailash Headwaters

The western route crosses the upper Yarlung Tsangpo between Saga and Zhongba, passes Shiquanhe on the Sengge Zangbo, and follows the Langqen Zangbo into the Zanda earth forest. Western Tibet is a border region with additional travel requirements; check the current permit rules before planning this route, and our Tibet travel permit guide summarises them. The Lhasa EBC Kailash Mansarovar tour runs this route.

Chamdo and the Eastern River Valleys

Chamdo is confluence country. The Lancang, the Salween and the upper Yangtze system all pass through or near it, running roughly north to south between narrow ranges. It is a long way from Lhasa, and most travelers reach it on eastern overland journeys rather than a Lhasa-based trip.