Global Corridor Expeditions

Sandwiched between the flat, fertile Sichuan Plain, with its paddy fields and crowded cities, and the vast open expanses of the high Tibetan Plateau are a series of mountain ranges. Adjacent to the plain they are no more than high hills jutting up from the flatland, but further in the mountain peaks are snow capped and deep, narrow valleys snake between the ranges, their raging rivers plunging ever onwards.

For generations the indigenous people have navigated this formidable terrain using rope suspension bridges across the rivers and zigzag paths up over the high passes. The valleys here are suitable for farming crops in the warm summer months, and the higher grasslands are ideal for rearing sheep and yak. Here, between the Plateau and the Plain is an interface where the ancient Chinese civilization in the east meets the Tibetan world to the west.

The frontier between these two realms has swung back and forth over the centuries, as aboriginal and immigrant tribes, traders and invaders have intermingled and sometimes fought over this strategic swathe of land. Anthropologists and linguists refer to this region as “Sichuan’s Ethnic Corridor.”