The Tibetan Plateau (Tibetan: བོད་ས་མཐོ།, Wylie: bod sa mtho), also known as the Qinghai-Tibetan (Qingzang) Plateau (Chinese: 青藏高原; pinyin: Qīngzàng Gāoyuán) is a vast, elevated plateau in Central Asia or East Asia covering most of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province in western China, as well as part of Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir. It stretches approximately 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) north to south and 2,500 kilometres (1,600 mi) east to west. With an average elevation exceeding 4,500 metres (14,800 ft), the Tibetan Plateau is sometimes called "the Roof of the World" and is the world's highest and largest plateau, with an area of 2.5 million km2 (0.97 million sq. mi., or about four times the size of France).
