Collection of Ladakh maps

1. Ladakh boundaries. Srinagar–Leh and Manali–Leh highways

See Ladakh Boundaries and Gateways page for more information.

2. Trekking Map of Ladakh by Sonam Tsetan

The map created by Sonam Tsetan (Leh) is schematic and quite basic in scale (approx 1:500,000). It has neither elevation contour lines nor shaded relief. However, it is a very popular overview map. As noted by Radek Kucharski in his book "Trekking in Ladakh" (2012), Sonam Tsetan's map "is accurate regarding the location of roads, trails, villages, rivers and bridges. In particular, the trail is marked on the correct side of the stream for most places, and bridges are shown where they really exist". Also, the map has the most accurate place names as it is produced by the Ladakhis.

The map is available in Leh bookstores and rather cheap. The 5th edition (2007) is recommended. Here are the two scan versions of the 1st edition (2000) map, which can be found online.


[fullsize, 1.4 Mb]	[fullsize, 5.7 Mb]

3. Other schematic maps of Ladakh

These maps are quite informative but should not be used as a trekking guide because they provide a schematic representation of trekking routes.


[fullsize, 8.6 Mb]	[fullsize, 6.8 Mb]	[fullsize, 1.7 Mb]

4. Maps of motorable roads in Ladakh

These maps are useful for planning a trip on a bike, a motorbike, or a car. The road type, distances and location of the fuel stations are indicated.

Road map by Harsh Vardhan (2011)

[fullsize, 769 Kb]

Road map by Vargis Khan (2017)

[fullsize, 1.12 Mb]

5. Topographic maps of Ladakh by U.S. Army Map Service, Series U502

Description	Produced around 1955, U.S. Army maps remain sufficiently accurate. However, the maps are completely outdated regarding the road network (e.g. the Manali-Leh road was constructed only in the early 1960s). It should be noted that the maps are still not suitable for georeferencing as they contain some distorted topographic objects. The full range of the U502 series maps can be found in the University of Texas Libraries.
Coverage	1:250,000 (1 cm to 2.5 km) scale maps (shown by the red rectangles) cover the whole Ladakh area.
Download	Click on a tile to open the map of the corresponding area in a new tab.

6. Topographic maps of Ladakh by Soviet General Staff ("Genshtab")

Description	Soviet Genshtab maps were created in the late 1970s. Given the technology of the time, they are incredibly accurate. The most detailed are represented by 1:200,000 (1 cm to 2 km) and 1:100,000 (1 cm to 1 km) scale maps. All objects and landmarks are labeled in Cyrillic script that creates a certain difficulty. This problem can be overcome by a parallel comparison with the corresponding Google map area. Also, an online Cyrillic converter may be used for transliteration.
Coverage	1:200,000 maps (shown by the red rectangles) cover the whole Ladakh area. 1:100,000 maps (shown by the yellow shaded rectangles) are not available for the central part of Ladakh, Zanskar and Rupshu.
Georeference	Each map is complemented with an OziExplorer calibration file (*.map), which can be used to open the map using OziExplorer, GPSMapEdit or Global Mapper programs.
Download	Click on a tile to display the download links for .gif and .map files of the corresponding area.

7. Topographic trekking map of the Ladakh and Zanskar region by Editions Olizane

Description	Ladakh and Zanskar trekking maps created by Abram Pointet and published by Editions Olizane (Geneva) are probably the best and most detailed topographic maps for trekking in Ladakh. The maps have elevation contours at 100-m intervals, enhanced by relief shading.
Coverage	The maps come in three different sections: North, Center and South, each covering an area of 90x240 km. The corresponding areas are outlined in blue, yellow and red respectively. The scale is 1:150,000 (1 cm to 2.5 km).
Paper maps	The maps can be ordered from a number of map stores (see the list here), but they are not cheap. The maps are also available in Leh bookstores.
Editions	While the first edition (2005) contained many inaccuracies, the maps have been greatly revised in the second (2008) and third (2013) editions (see sample area). Check the edition before buying, because older editions are still on sale.

Download

The scanned sheets of the 2005 edition map can be found online (for example in the Library Genesis repository). Also, there is a version where the separate sheets are merged together to create a single map (North+Center+South, 3 in 1). Please note that the map is outdated and contains some mistakes (for example, the position of the Stok Kangri summit is incorrect; actually it is located at the point labeled as Kantaka peak).

Here you can download the georeference file (in the OziExplorer *.map format) for the "3 in 1" map deposited in Library Genesis, which can be utilized for GPS track routing using OziExplorer, GPSMapEdit or Global Mapper programs:

[ladakh_and_zanskar(north+center+south).map] (3.9 Kb).

This file should be placed in the same folder as the map file named "ladakh_and_zanskar(north+center+south).jpg".

8. Topographic contour line map of Ladakh for Garmin GPS devices

Description	Elevation contour line maps (20- or 100-meter elevation interval) in Garmin IMG format (see sample area)
Based on	NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) dataset SRTMGL1 version 3 ("SRTM Plus"), void-filled global 1-arc-second (~30 meter) resolution data
Coverage	Ladakh region with the adjoining areas of J&K and HP states. The map boundary is shown by the red polygon on the left (with Ladakh boundary shown in yellow).
Usage	Place the file named "gmapsupp.img" into \Garmin folder on your GPS device memory card. The IMG map file can be opened on the PC using the free program GPSMapEdit.
Download	[20-m interval map] (174 Mb) [100-m interval map] (37.2 Mb)

9. TripsToLadakh trekking map of Ladakh, suitable for GPS navigation

Description	This map is based primarily on the Earth's satellite images to retrieve topographic data (rivers, glaciers, roads, trails, villages, camps, etc). In most cases, the map accuracy is within 10-20 m. The map is suitable for Garmin GPS devices.
Coverage	Currently, the following regions are covered: central part of Ladakh (North from the Indus river), Sham, Zanskar (Northern part), Tso Moriri and Rupshu (partially), Spiti (partially). See the raster images below for more details.
Usage	Place the file named "gmapsupp.img" into \Garmin folder on your GPS device memory card. For better performance, the map should be used in conjunction with an elevation contour line map (20-m interval is preferred) which can be downloaded using the links above. In this case, the map files should be named as "gmapsupp1.img" and "gmapsupp2.img". The IMG map files can be opened on the PC using the free program GPSMapEdit.
Download	[Ladakh-Zanskar-Spiti map v1.0] (1.14 Mb)
Raster images	The raster images were generated by superimposition of the map on the shaded relief (based on SRTM data) in conjunction with the 100-m elevation interval contour line map. The grid lines have a spacing of 5 km. [Whole Ladakh-Zanskar-Spiti map] (79.5 Mb) [Markha valley and Stok Kangri treks] (5.2 Mb) [Sham trek] (2.8 Mb) [Lamayuru-Padum and Lamayuru-Chilling treks] (8.1 Mb)

Please send comments and corrections to Palden, TripsToLadakh. GPS data (treks and points) to include into the map will be much appreciated.

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