The Himalayas abut or cross 

five countries: Bhutan, India, Nepal, China, and Pakistan. The

sovereignty of the range in the Kashmir region is disputed among India, Pakistan, and China. [4] The
Himalayan range is bordered on the northwest by the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, on the
north by the Tibetan Plateau, and on the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Some of the world's
major rivers, the Indus, the Ganges, and the Tsangpo–Brahmaputra, rise in the vicinity of the
Himalayas, and their combined drainage basin is home to some 600 million people; 53 million
people live in the Himalayas.[5] The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South
Asia and Tibet. Many Himalayan peaks are sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism; the summits of
several—Kangchenjunga (from the Indian side), Gangkhar Puensum, Machapuchare, Nanda
Devi and Kailas in the Tibetan Transhimalaya—are off-limits to climbers.

Lifted by the subduction of the Indian tectonic plate under the Eurasian Plate, the Himalayan

mountain range runs west-northwest to east-southeast in an arc 2,400 km (1,500 mi) long.[6] Its
western anchor, Nanga Parbat, lies just south of the northernmost bend of the Indus river. Its
eastern anchor, Namcha Barwa, lies immediately west of the great bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo
River. The range varies in width from 350 km (220 mi) in the west to 150 km (93 mi) in the east