High Mountain Asia Map

About the map

This is Earth’s loftiest region, formed by the Indian tectonic plate sliding northward beneath the Eurasian plate. It contains the largest reservoir of glacial ice outside of polar regions. Meltwaters from the glaciers feed rivers that nearly 3 billion people in adjacent lowlands depend on for drinking water and crop irrigation.

I produced the High Mountain Asia map from multiple sources. Base map elements, including rivers, lakes, mountain summits, country borders, and populated places derive from Natural Earth v. 6.0. Elevation zone colors are cross-blended hypsometric tints. Shaded relief derives from 450m SRTM data rendered in Eduard software. Place name references included GEOnet Names Server, Wikipedia, PeakVisor, Apple Maps, and atlases. Names were often completely different between these sources, and romanization varied. I tried to be as consistent as possible.

Tom Patterson

September 2, 2025

Map downloads - Pick the version best for you

High Mountain Asia - Physical Map

The High Mountain Asia map is in the public domain. Use it any way that you want. You are not required to cite the map.

Modifying and repurposing the map

Layered Adobe Illustrator file with MAPublisher georeferencing and terrain art, 322.3 MB

Terrain art without type and type halos

Georeferenced terrain with hydrography, GeoTIFF, 350 DPI, 94.9 MB

Contact me

I will periodically update the map. Please let me know about major features to include or any problems that you find.

Thanks!