Zoigê Marsh
Wetlands in Sichuan province, China
The Zoigê Marsh (Chinese: 若尔盖湿地; pinyin: Ruò'ěrgài Shīdì), also known as the Ruo'ergai Marsh or the Songpan Grasslands, is located in the eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau and forms the largest high-altitude marsh area in the world.
Location
The marsh areas are mainly located in northern Sichuan Province, but extend into southern Gansu and southeastern Qinghai. The marshes are formed in a region of poor drainage that is located between the watersheds of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. The marshes are located at an altitude of about 3,600 meters above sea level and cover an area of about 2,600 square kilometers. To east, they are bordered by the Min Mountains and to the west by the Amne Machin mountain range.
Geology
The marshes can be divided into four geomorphological regions: the Zoigê plateau plain, the Hong Yuan plateau mound, the A Ba plateau mountain, and the Songpan-Lixan Alp. The soil of the marshes contains a layer of peat that is about 2 to 3 meters thick in most places, but can reach up to 7 meters in thickness.The wetland is a low-level developed herbaceous swamp since the Quaternary Himalayan orogeny. It is also an important water conservation area in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, accounting for 29-45% of the water supply of the total upstream inflow.
History
The Long March passed through the Zoigê Marsh in August 1935. The marshes were partially drained for grazing of cattle, sheep, and horses in the 1970s.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Zoigê Marsh” is wetlands in Sichuan province, China. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Zoigê, Marsh and Wetlands, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “wetlands in Sichuan province, China” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8073502. Authority coordinates are 33.700, 102.633. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Zoigê Marsh” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.