The Himalayas are a high mountain system in Asia between the Indian subcontinent in the south and the Tibetan highlands in the north. The mountain range stretches for some 3,000 km from Pakistan to Myanmar (Burma) and reaches a maximum width of 350 km. The Himalayas are home to ten of the fourteen mountains on Earth whose peaks are more than 8,000 m high (“eight-thousanders”), including Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world at 8,848 m.

The mountain ranges from Central Asia, the Khyber Pass on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Karakorum in Kashmir, along the border of India and the two Himalayan States Nepal and Bhutan with Tibet, to the south-collapsed Patkai Mountains between Assam and Myanmar and the Hengduan Mountains, the southern flank of the eastern slope of the Tibetan Highlands. It separates South Asia from the rest of the continent.

Map: Himalayas
Map: Himalayas