Rooftop of India — 3,500-metre Himalayan capital, moonlike deserts, Pangong Lake, Buddhist monasteries, and Manali–Leh highway
Leh is the capital of the Union Territory of Ladakh, India, at 3,524 metres elevation in the Indus Valley between the Himalayan and Karakoram mountain ranges — one of the highest inhabited cities in the world, accessible only by air year-round, or by the legendary Manali–Leh Highway (one of the world's highest motorable roads, open only June–October) or the Srinagar–Leh Highway. The city sits in a high-altitude cold desert: barren brown and ochre mountains, sparse Buddhist monasteries (gompas) perched on cliff tops, poplar trees along irrigation channels, and a deep blue sky at altitude that…
Ladakh was founded as a kingdom around 950 CE by Nyima-Gon, a Tibetan prince who fled the collapse of the Tibetan Empire and established a new dynasty in the western Himalayas. The kingdom reached its greatest extent under Sengge Namgyal (1620s), controlling territory from Zanskar to the Aksai Chin. The Leh Palace (Lekir), built in the 17th century in the style of the Potala Palace in Lhasa (completed two decades later), was the royal residence until the kingdom was conquered by the Sikh-allied Dogra general Zorawar Singh in 1834. After partition, Ladakh became part of Jammu & Kashmir state o…