Ladakh (pop. 300,000) is a union territory in northern India. It is located in the Himalaya, the world’s tallest mountain system. The name Ladakh means land of the high passes. The high, rugged landscape of Ladakh is thinly populated.
The Indian state of Himachal Pradesh lies to the south of Ladakh, and the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir lies to the west. The locations of Ladakh’s borders with Pakistan to the northwest and with China to the northeast are disputed between India and those two countries.
Ladakh was also the name of a historical region. In the mid-1800’s, this region was incorporated into the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, often simply called Kashmir. When India and Pakistan gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, they both claimed the entire Kashmir region, including Ladakh. China also disputed sections of its borders with the region and seized part of the land in the early 1960’s. Today, each of the three nations controls a part of the historical region, and periodic boundary clashes have continued to occur.
India initially organized the area of Kashmir under its control into the state of Jammu and Kashmir. In 2019, the Parliament of India split the state into two union territories—Jammu and Kashmir in the west and Ladakh in the east. The area of the union territory of Ladakh that is governed by India covers about 22,800 square miles (59,100 square kilometers). The full area that India claims for Ladakh also includes some lands that are currently controlled by China and Pakistan.
Government.
The president of India appoints a lieutenant governor to administer the union territory of Ladakh. The union territory does not have a legislature. The people of Ladakh elect one representative to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament.
Ladakh has two capitals. The summer capital is Leh, and the winter capital is Kargil. Each town also serves as the capital of one of the union territory’s two districts, also named Leh and Kargil. The Leh district covers eastern Ladakh, and Kargil district lies to the west. Each of them has an elected autonomous district council with authority to pass regulations and administer such matters as education, land management, public health, social welfare, and water resources. People elect councils called panchayats to govern villages and other local units.
Each district in Ladakh has a district court. The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh serves as the high court for both the union territory of Ladakh and the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
People.
Ladakh has a lower population density than most other parts of India. People live mainly in the river valleys. The people of Ladakh have close ties of ancestry and culture with the neighboring region of Tibet, which has been governed by China since the 1950’s. Ladakh has sometimes been called Little Tibet.
The main local languages spoken are Ladakhi in the Leh district, and Purig in the Kargil district. Both languages belong to the Sino-Tibetan language family. The two main religions in Ladakh are Buddhism and Islam. Buddhism is more commonly practiced in Leh, and Islam is more commonly practiced in Kargil. Other religious groups include Hindus and a few Christians and Sikhs.
Economy and transportation.
The economy of Ladakh depends primarily on agriculture. Farmers grow crops in the valleys, mostly on small landholdings. The main crops include apricots, apples, barley, buckwheat, wheat, and such vegetables as peas and turnips. Farmers also raise poultry and some livestock. At higher altitudes, herders raise dzo (a cow-yak hybrid), goats, sheep, and yaks. High-quality cashmere wool is made from the hair of the region’s Pashmina goats.
Ladakh has some small-scale industry that produces mainly food products and handicrafts. Its handcrafted goods include cashmere shawls, embroidered and felted fabric goods, handmade rugs, silver jewelry, and carved wood products. The government of Ladakh sponsors a number of handicraft training programs.
Tourism is important to the economy. People visit the area to enjoy hiking and dramatic mountain scenery. Ladakh’s many Buddhist monasteries contain beautiful artwork, and their popular festivals feature dance dramas by colorfully robed and masked performers.
Transportation is primarily by road, but rockfalls, snowfall, and avalanches can close roads unexpectedly. Snow blocks roads between Leh and other parts of India for several straight months every year. Winter weather also frequently interrupts air travel.
Land and climate.
High mountain ranges separated by deep valleys run parallel to each other through Ladakh. The Greater Himalayan Range lies along Ladakh’s border with Jammu and Kashmir. To the east are the Zanskar, Ladakh, and Karakorum ranges, all extending roughly southeast to northwest. Much of the land lies above the tree line (altitude above which trees cannot grow).
The Indus River, which originates in the mountains of Tibet, enters Ladakh at the southeast corner of the territory. It flows northwest past the town of Leh before joining the Zaskar, another important river in the region. Several salty lakes lie in the high plains and valleys of southeastern Ladakh.
Ladakh has long, cold winters. Its summers have warm days and chilly nights. The air rising over the Himalaya loses most of its moisture before it reaches Ladakh, so the region is very dry. Ladakhi farmers irrigate their fields by channeling water from rivers and mountain streams fed by snowmelt.
History.
Rock carvings found in Ladakh indicate that nomadic tribes were present in the area in ancient times. The earliest known inhabitants were tribes called the Dards and the Mons. Although the region was sparsely populated, trade routes ran through passes in the surrounding mountains and across Ladakh. The routes connected Central Asia, China, India, and Tibet.
In the A.D. 600’s, an empire based in Tibet began to exert a loose influence over the small states in the Ladakh region. The Tibetan empire dissolved in the mid-800’s. In the 900’s, a Tibetan prince established control over some of the small states in Ladakh and made his capital at Shey, near the village of Leh. He established the La-chen dynasty, Ladakh’s first dynasty (family of rulers). Tibetan culture and religion have strongly influenced Ladakhi culture. For example, although Buddhism originally spread to Ladakh from India, since about the 1200’s, the form of Mahayana Buddhism practiced in Tibet has become the main form of the religion in Ladakh as well. Influences have also come from other regions. Muslim traders from Kashmir brought Islam to Kargil around the 1300’s.
Ladakh’s second dynasty, the Namgyal, emerged in the mid-1400’s and ruled until 1842. It reached its height in the 1600’s under Singge Namgyal. He built a strong kingdom and moved the capital to Leh.
In the mid-1600’s, the Mughal Empire, which ruled most of India, forced Ladakh to formally recognize its authority. As the empire declined in the 1700’s, the Hindu kingdom of Jammu on Ladakh’s southwestern border gained importance. It invaded Ladakh in the 1830’s and ended the Namgyal dynasty in 1842. In 1846, the British colonial rulers of India gave control of the fertile Vale of Kashmir (valley of Kashmir) to Gulab Singh, the king of Jammu. Gulab Singh became the maharajah (grand king) of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, which also included Ladakh.
The rise of Indian nationalism, which had begun in the 1800’s, and the great economic and social strain on Britain caused by World War II (1939-1945) forced the British to withdraw from their empire in India in 1947. The two independent countries of India and Pakistan were created.
Initially, Maharajah Hari Singh did not merge Kashmir into India or Pakistan. The maharajah was Hindu, but the majority of the princely state’s overall population, mostly densely concentrated in and around the Vale of Kashmir, was Muslim. Pakistani Muslims launched an invasion to take Kashmir by force, and Pakistan laid claim to it. Hari Singh responded by seeking India’s protection and by making Kashmir part of India. A war between India and Pakistan lasted until 1949, when the United Nations (UN) arranged a cease-fire and set up a truce line. India organized the land south of the line as the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan established administrative territories north of the line.
By the late 1950’s, Chinese troops had begun moving into the uninhabited Aksai Chin region of eastern Ladakh. As a result of a brief war with India in 1962, China took control of Aksai Chin up to a ceasefire line called the Line of Actual Control (LAC). China thus gained better access through the mountains to western Tibet. In 1963, Pakistan also turned over a strip of border land to China. India continues to claim both these areas as part of Ladakh. 
In 1971, civil war broke out in Pakistan when the Pakistan military sought to suppress a movement for autonomy (greater independence) in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Millions of East Pakistani refugees fled into India. India intervened to assist East Pakistan, and fighting between India and Pakistan also spread to the west, involving Kashmir. The Shimla Agreement of 1972, which settled the conflict, established a border called the Line of Control (LOC) between Indian-held and Pakistani-held territories. Occasional border clashes have broken out between India and Pakistan and between India and China. These clashes included serious fighting between Pakistan and India in northern Kargil in 1999.
Due to unrest in the region, the government of India banned foreigners from traveling in Ladakh until 1974. Since then, tourism has become important to the economy. The Indian government divided Ladakh into two districts in 1979. It established an autonomous district council for Leh in 1995, and one for Kargil in 2003.
When the state of Jammu and Kashmir was formed, India’s government gave it a special status with more self-government than other Indian states, because it was the only state with a Muslim majority in a country that was mainly Hindu. In 2019, the Parliament of India ended the state’s special status. It then reorganized the state as two union territories, Jammu and Kashmir in the west and Ladakh in the east. India’s federal government exercises more direct control over union territories than it does over states.
In 2020, confrontations mounted between Indian and Chinese forces stationed on opposite sides of the LAC, including a violent clash in the Galwan Valley of Ladakh. Also in recent years, both India and China have built new roads, railroads, and bridges that have improved general transportation and strategic access to the remote borderlands. Tension over the disputed areas has continued.
