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The Longest Lake--Jade Banggong Lake
 Banggong Lake is also called Como'nganglharingbo or Gemukelalalingco, and means bright, beautiful, narrow and long lake. Its length from east to west is159km and it is the longest lake in China. It lies in the border of Rutog Prefecture of Tibet Autonomous Region and Kashmir (India), composing of Anglaruico in the east, Niyaguangco in the middle and Emuboco in the west. The two ends of the lake are open to the outside rivers and the middle part is narrow. The maximum width is 15km, but the narrowest section is only 41.3m. The total area is 604 km2, with 413 km2 in China and 191 km2 in Kashmir. The lake is 41.3m deep, with a volume of 74x108m3 and an elevation of 4242m. The lake is a fault-trough lake developed in the great Banggong-Dongqiao-Nujiang Rupture. Along the lake bank lift the precipices, and the exposed hot springs along the fault line . The ancient Banggong Lake was fairly large, but the lake surface shrank constantly due to relatively dry plateau climate since the Quaternary Period. The remnant strand lines in the east bank, reach 9 grades, with the highest up to 80 meters higher than the present.
Banggong Lake is like a piece of narrow and long jasper beset among peaks over peaks. To the north and south of the lake are the famous Kalakunlun and Kangdese mountain system, the tops of which are curled up by clouds and mists, and covered by pure white snow. The lake drainage area is 28714 km2, and is mainly replenished by the melt ice and snow from the surrounding mountain region. The coefficient of the replenishment is 47.5. There is no water flowing out of the lake, which belongs to the plateau landlocked lake. The precipitation in the lake region is scarce, but the evaporation is huge. The average annual precipitation is only 60.4mm , but the annual evaporation is high up to 2465.3mm. Because the lake extended long from east to west, the water replenishment in different sections is varied in amount, the salt contents are also different, and exhibit a characteristic of being more saline from east to west. The eastern section of the lake is wide , large in replenishment, and the mineralization degree reaches 678.88mg/L, which belongs to freshwater lake; while in the middle section the degree is 2757mg/L( saltwater) and in the west section it is high at 11021mg/L. The fresh water storage in the lake is 46.6x106m3, salt water storage 27.4x106m3 . The lake abounds with Racoma labiata and Schizopygosis stoliczkae stoliczkae.
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