Lake · India · China
Pangong Tso
Soda lake in the Himalayas
- Area
- 285km²
- Max depth
- 328m
- Average depth
- 87m
- Elevation
- 4,241m a.s.l.
- Shoreline
- 207km
- Volume
- 24.9km³
Pangong Tso is a lake in India. It covers 285 km². On average it is 87 m deep, and 328 m at its deepest point. Its surface lies 4,241 m above sea level.
Plan your visit
Stay, sail and get there
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The water
How warm is Pangong Tso?
The water is warmest in August, around 13 °C at the surface, and coldest in January, around 0 °C. Even at its warmest, the surface stays below 17 °C on average: this is cold water.
The lake usually freezes over for about 111 days a year, from around 19 December to 8 April.
On the shore, afternoons reach 16 °C on average in July and -12 °C in January. The driest month is October (4 mm of rain), the wettest August (36 mm).
Average surface temperature measured by the Landsat 8 satellite between 2013 and 2021 at the point furthest from the shore (111 readings). Shallow bays and beaches are often warmer.
From above
The whole lake from space
Month by month
The year at the lake, month by month
Not a forecast: these are averages over many years. Water is the 2013–2021 average; air, rain, sun and wind are the 1991–2020 average.
Water: 2013–2021 averageClimate: 1991–2020 average
| Month | Water°C | Water high°C | Air high°C | Air low°C | Rainmm | Rainy daysdays | Sunh/day | Windkm/h |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | Ice | — | -12 | -25 | 13 | 3 | 5.4 | 13 |
| February | Ice | — | -10 | -23 | 12 | 3 | 5.4 | 14 |
| March | Ice | — | -5 | -18 | 13 | 3 | 7.3 | 13 |
| April | 1 | 3 | 0 | -10 | 8 | 2 | 9.1 | 14 |
| May | 5 | 7 | 5 | -6 | 8 | 2 | 10.9 | 13 |
| June | 9 | 11 | 11 | -3 | 11 | 2 | 11.0 | 12 |
| July | 12 | 13 | 16 | 1 | 32 | 7 | 10.9 | 11 |
| August | 13 | 13 | 15 | 0 | 36 | 8 | 10.5 | 10 |
| September | 12 | 13 | 10 | -4 | 11 | 2 | 10.6 | 11 |
| October | 9 | 11 | 1 | -10 | 4 | 1 | 10.2 | 11 |
| November | 5 | 7 | -4 | -17 | 8 | 2 | 8.5 | 12 |
| December | 1 | 2 | -10 | -22 | 7 | 1 | 6.9 | 12 |
Water: LakeTEMP (Landsat 8, 2013–2021). Air, rain, sun and wind: NASA POWER, 1991–2020 averages. A rainy day has at least 1 mm of rain. Sunshine hours are derived from measured solar radiation.
Size & depth
How big, how deep
- On average, water stays in the lake for about 78 years before flowing out.
- Its catchment drains 27,103 km² of land.
- About 10 m³ of water flow out every second, on average.
- Its shoreline is 3.5 times longer than a circle of the same area: plenty of bays and inlets.
Around the shore
What's around Pangong Tso
Counted within 1.5 km of the shoreline in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit.
- —beaches and swimming spots
- 6campsites
Chartse and 5 more
- —boat hire and water-sport clubs
- —marinas and slipways
- —ferry piers
- 3viewpoints
Pangong View Point, Frozen Panggong
- 17hotels, B&Bs and chalets
Pangong Inn, 100 Sky Camp, Khemtse home stay, Camp Water Mark, The Original Alpine Huts and 12 more
- —fishing spots
- 6restaurants and cafés
Nearest airport with scheduled flights: Leh Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport (IXL), 118 km in a straight line.
Car hire at IXC airport (Chandigarh)Discover Cars · Affiliate linkOpenStreetMap is built by volunteers: when a number is low, it may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.
Recent years
How each month compared
Afternoon high on the shore. The first row is the reference, the 1991–2020 average in °C; the years below show the difference from it: warmer in orange, cooler in blue.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991–2020 average | -12.0 | -10.1 | -5.2 | 0.2 | 5.0 | 11.3 | 15.9 | 14.9 | 9.6 | 1.2 | -4.5 | -9.6 |
| 2020 | −3.2 | −1.1 | −2.5 | −3.1 | −2.0 | −1.7 | −2.0 | +0.8 | +0.3 | +1.1 | −2.2 | −4.0 |
| 2021 | −1.2 | +0.4 | −1.2 | −3.6 | −1.2 | −1.4 | −0.3 | −0.7 | +2.0 | ±0.0 | −0.7 | −2.2 |
| 2022 | −1.6 | −2.9 | +1.7 | +1.6 | +1.5 | +0.1 | +0.3 | −0.4 | +0.4 | −0.5 | −1.2 | +0.4 |
| 2023 | −0.7 | +0.3 | −0.7 | −2.2 | −3.8 | −1.9 | −2.3 | +0.5 | +0.9 | −0.5 | +1.4 | +2.0 |
| 2024 | +2.4 | −1.9 | −2.1 | −2.5 | +0.4 | −1.4 | +1.2 | +0.1 | +1.8 | +2.2 | +2.4 | −0.4 |
| 2025 | +0.4 | −0.8 | −2.3 | −0.1 | +1.4 | +2.1 | +0.4 | −1.0 | +0.8 | −0.1 | +0.3 | +2.6 |
+1 warmer than usual −1 cooler than usual
About these numbers
| Outline, area, depth, volume | HydroLAKES v1.0 (Messager et al. 2016) · CC BY 4.0 |
|---|---|
| Water temperature and ice | LakeTEMP v1 (Korver et al. 2024), Landsat 8 2013–2021 · CC BY 4.0 |
| Air, rain, sun, wind | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 · public domain |
| Names and description | Wikidata (Q1032254) · CC0 |
| Around the shore | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every figure is an average or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
