The Himalayas (also Himalaya, Sanskrit: हिमालय, IPA pronunciation: [hɪ’m�'lijə], [ˌhɪmə’leɪjə]) are a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. By extension, it is also the name of the massive mountain system which includes the Himalaya proper, the Karakoram, the Hindu Kush, and a host of minor ranges extending from the Pamir Knot. The name is from Sanskrit himālaya, a tatpurusa compound meaning “the abode of snow” (from hima “snow”, and ālaya “abode”; see also Himavat).

Together, the Himalaya mountain system is the planet’s highest and home to the world’s highest peaks: the Eight-thousanders, including Mount Everest(8808). To comprehend the enormous scale of Himalayan peaks, consider that Aconcagua, in the Andes, at 6,962 m, is the highest peak outside the Himalaya, while the Himalayan system has over 100 separate mountains exceeding 7,200 meters.

The Himalayas stretch across six nations: Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan. They are the source of three of the world’s major river systems, the Indus basin, the Ganga-Brahmaputra basin and the Yangtze basin. Approximately 2.4 billion people live in the drainage basin of the Himalayan rivers, among them the people of Bangladesh. The Himalayas run, west to east, from the Indus river valley to the Brahmaputra river valley, thereby forming an arc 2,400 km long, which varies in width from 400 km in the western Kashmir-Xinjiang region to 150 km in the eastern Tibet-Arunachal Pradesh region. The Himalaya chain consists of three parallel ranges, with the northern-most range known as the Great or Inner Himalayas.