• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.

AirikrStrife

Bergakungen
20 Badges
Jul 30, 2010
2.292
1.827
  • Europa Universalis IV: Art of War
  • Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise
  • Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mare Nostrum
  • Europa Universalis 4: Emperor
  • Imperator: Rome Sign Up
  • Europa Universalis IV: Golden Century
  • Europa Universalis IV: Dharma
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rule Britannia
  • Europa Universalis IV: Cradle of Civilization
  • Europa Universalis IV: Third Rome
  • Europa Universalis IV: Mandate of Heaven
  • Europa Universalis IV: Rights of Man
  • Crusader Kings II
  • Europa Universalis IV: Cossacks
  • Europa Universalis IV: Common Sense
  • Europa Universalis IV: Pre-order
  • Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado
  • Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
  • Europa Universalis IV
So I have had a fairly massive thread on Tibet, mostly driven by myself and @Semi-Lobster with valuable support from many others including @Warial and @JKiller96 who has engaged in the region.
The thread itself is pretty cramped as we adding new research and continously updated the thread through almost a months time, the old thread is linked below. Today I'm starting this thread as a response to the recent update to the tibet map @Trin Tragula

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/tibetan-region-changes.1017810/

EDIT: Please see threadmark: "Final update on my map mod" For a modded and final version of the map

While a lot of good work were put into southern/central tibet (the Ü-Tsang area) and parts of western tibet (Guge looking good)

Representing Tibet "exactly" is frankly impossible, the area is several times the size of germany, heavily decentralized with semi-feudal structures of nobles and monasteries, independent tribes and small kingdoms dotting the landscape making it comparable to the HRE in some sense while having significantly smaller population, less of an overarching structure and way less sources to use in depicting this region. After the fall of the Tibetan empire, what held together a sense of tibetan identity was primarily the religion and tibetan literary languages based on the old imperial.
This means that any approach to Tibet will have to be moderated focusing on significant actors in game

Central Tibetan region (Ü-Tsang):

source I'm refering to then putting only thlib in my sourcing for Ü-Tsang
http://www.thlib.org/places/politie...es.thlib.org/features/24112/descriptions/1227

Seeing the historical development of central Tibet during the era of Phagmodrupa, Ringpungpa and the later Tsangpa dynasties should not be seen as different 'states', rather dynastic strife for political power over central Tibet. To that extent Ü-Tsang can be likened to the dynastic wars of the HRE

Case of naming:
Splitting out central Tibet in two polities, Tsang based Ringpungpa and Ü based Phagmodrupa is a very good start. However I foind the naming conventions strange as the Ringpunga retain the Ü-Tsang portmanneau name while the Phagmodrupa (which is the place the dynasty is based on) are named after dynasty, something generally avoided in euiv, and espacially when contrasting these two states. I find using regional labels 'Tsang' for the Ringpungpa and 'Ü' for Phagmodrupa to be a far better approach. This is not something I pulled out of a hat but an existing practice in academia:

The rise of the Rinpung government represents the rise of a new region of power in Central Tibet, namely Zhikatsé (gzhis ka rtse) in Tsang. It is from this town that the Rinpung government successfully wrested control of Central Tibetan from the Pakmodru and began a century of conflict between Ü and Tsang. source: Thlib

Case of controlled territory:
For those who have studied the new map a bit closer, and then compare it to above mentioned qoute we immediately run into a major discrepency, the base of the Ringpungpa, Zhigatse is controlled by the Phagmodrupa at the start!

In 1435 the Rinpung family moved its administration from the family seat of Rinpung to the fortress of Samdruptsé (bsam grub rtse), located in present day Zhikatsé. This was to remain the center of the Rinpung Government through its reign. source thlib

On the other hand, it is unlikely that Ringpunga controlled that much of Ü-Tsang already in 1444:

This increasing family control laid the ground for Norbu Zangpo’s grandson, Dönyö Dorjé (don yod rdo rje, 1462-1512, the son of Künzangpa [kun bzang pa]) to significantly increase Rinpung’s control of Tsang in 1480, and launch a major offensive against the Lhasa area in 1481. In 1485 he attacked the Gyantsé polity, but was defeated when Pakmodru and Lhasa allied with Gyantsé. In 1492 Donyö Dorjé successfully took control of several districts around Lhasa, and in 1498 he held such control over Lhasa that he was able to forbid Gelukpa monks and religious leaders from attending the Lhasa Great Prayer festival, source: thlib


For the case of more remote border areas, the Nyingtri province could just as well have been an independent state, Powo: http://www.thlib.org/places/politie...6&search_scope=global&scope=name&filter=dolpo
though I do not find that necessary it can sort of arbitrarily be placed with the Phagmodrupa/Ü.
Nagchu area seems to have been mostly nomadic, and at least part of it part of the Hor state: http://www.tibetguru.com/nagqu/history/ http://www.thlib.org/places/politie...es.thlib.org/features/23700/descriptions/1300
Both Nagchu and Powo is occasionally considered parts of Kham, rather than Ü-Tsang.

If we want to avoid adding too many small countries to the region, I would suggest an updated set-up as follows:
Tsang/Ringpungpa: Gyirong, Sakya Tsurphu, Shigatse (capitol), Damxung
Ü/Phagmodrupa: Lhasa, Nedong (capitol), Nyingtri, Nagchu, the Bhutan provinces

But I would also suggest that Bhutan could be made an independent state at start, since the tag already is there, the area was in reality a myriad of various tribes. Having it independent would also better balance central tibet with Ringpungpa being larger than Phagmodrupa.

There could be added a Hor state to the north,, encompassing some provinces in the borderlands of Kham, Amdo and Ü-Tsang.

Western Tibet (Guge & Ladakh):
After the fall of the Tibetan empire, the west tibetan region formed it's own kingdom and later fragmented, reunited, and so on with principal regions being Guge and Ladakh (two states represented in game). So game set up is fairly good in the Guge part of that area. Except that from what I can tell, the city of Purang isn't in the new Purang province, but in the easternmost part of Ngari province. If I'm right I would suggest renaming the province to Mangyül, capitol: Dzongkar

Aside from that I would like to suggest a new province (presumably it's own tag) in the form of the kingdom of Mustang: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Mustang#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolpo#History

I think this would merit having the area not as a wasteland, made into a province it could either be part of Guge or be independent. I also want to highlight the importance of this region to create better movement between Guge and central Nepal, as these areas were well intertwined in warfare and trade, with Mustang playing a relevant role (one of many sources: Historical Atlas of Tibet page 135)


While we haven't gotten a screenshot properly including Ladakh, it doesn't look like the country has changed at all. Here there could have been done some work and the first step is to properly divid (and correctly name!) the provinces in the area.

To begin with setting records straight, the province currently in game named Baltistan, is not Baltistan. Baltistan is located in the western part of the Ladakh province. The current Baltistan province should be renamed, potential name Druzha from one of the maps I have on Tibet but I don't know the historical context to that name. Modern name Gilgit might also work.

So let's look at the province of Ladakh. For starters it is pretty large, and if we look at it historically it has been split in several ways throughout history, I will focus on three main divisions of the province which I deem the most relevant: Baltistan (west), Sangskar (south) and Ladakh.

First of Baltistan should not be part of a Ladakh monarchy, it fell out of the Ladakh sphere of control in the 14-15th century and would most appropriately be represented as independent (this is a detail I'm not that sure of), could include the old province of Baltistan aswell.

The country of Ladakh would then constitute two provinces, Ladakh and Zangskar.
Zangskar should go as a belt along the southern part of the current Ladakh province and could also include the Lahul and Spiti valleys, which is currently wastelands, meaning that Zangskar would border the Guge kingdom.

Some general reasons why Zangskar merits it's own province: Was it's own kingdom, has it's own language, is separated from Ladakh by a mountain range.

Ladakh, Sangskar and Baltistan should all have tibetan culture. The culture of Druzhe/Gilgit should probably be kashmiri. The population is dardic and burushaki.

Eastern Tibet (Amdo&Kham)
These two regions are massive, modern Qinghai prefecture, covering most but not all of Amdo region is 720 000 km2 large, more than twice the size of the British isles. Needless to say I don't think Amdo should have that much level of detail as england. But having Amdo and Kham, which consist of dozens of polities as one country (and ruled by the wrong dynasty in the 1.25 set-up) is, I would believe, below the level of detail we by now can expact from the game.

In my previous thread I mark out a lot of potential new provinces to the region, including a province representing the Golok confederation in Amdo, the Muli kingdom in Kham,
redrawing the chinese-tibetan borderlands to add the Gyarong and Jinchuan region aswell as the important Choné kingdom.

Maybe this isn't the focus of the current update to Tibet, and there will be a future update the Amdo and Kham, so while my research is still in my old thread, I won't go into full detail of the Amdo-Kham region and I hope we can see a change to the area already in this patch. The first is pretty simple, the division of Kham and Amdo in sperate states. Using the Lingthang kingdom for Kham, and the Choné kingdom for Amdo (this will require reworking the Taozhou province in china as it's here that Choné actually were located)

When the Ming dynasty had ended the Yuan rule, sino-mongol overlordship over Tibet came to an effective end, though not the end of political relation. In the Amdo region the Ming allied with two kings who became "subjcects" of Ming and secured the very important horse-tea trade route. These kingdoms were based in Chone and Linxia, both within the current Taozhou province. In game these kingdoms are part of Ming, but it doesn't reflect reality there the kings ruled their own territory and also had the formal overlordship of most of Amdo. The exact relationship with these kings and the Ming are somewhat debatted but the Tibetan rulers existed before Ming established political presence in the area, and merely accepted a sort of political relation reminiscent of a vassal system. To me this would best fit having Amdo as a tributary of Ming at start.

Kham is also a heavily fragmented state during the EUIV timeline, with the strong Derge state barely having been founded (the one used by PDX). Instead the Lingtsang kingdom with roots in the Sakya-mongol administration were the most powerful state in Kham at in the 15th century. I would use the Lingtsang as template for Kham, and possibly add a seperate Lingtsang province (there could easily be added 2-3 new provinces to Kham but I will focus on spliitting the Current Tachienlu province in two parts)

Next (overlapping) issue also corresponds to the newly added wasteland between eastern Kham and Ming. I am very confounded by this wasteland, while the terrain is very difficut in the area (more about that in a second) the wasteland cuts right through the main trade route going from Tachienlu east, second, it is, if I'm reading the map right, the location of the jinchuan wars. It's unfortunate semi-lobster hasn't been active for some time now since he was the expert on the area but a brief summary of the wars based on wikipedia:
The Jinchuan campaigns were two of the Ten Great Campaigns of Qianlong. Compare to his other eight campaigns, the cost of fighting Jinchuan was extraordinary. Jinchuan, a small county of Sichuan, cost the Qing Empire 600,000 people and 70 million silver taels to conquer, a cost that was more devastating than any other Great Campaigns accomplished by Qianlong.

The area of eastern Kham, including the city of Tachienlu and the Songqu province was (and still is) home to Gyarong people and the region is called Gyelrong. Historicaly a multitude of tribal kingdoms existed in the region, with the most powerful one being the Chakla kingdom. I would rework the eastern borders of Kham, remove the new wasteland and include the Songqu province in a new state called Gyelrong
http://www.thlib.org/places/politie...earch_scope=global&scope=name&filter=gyelrong
(Look at the search window to the right for essays)

On a much smaller notice, the northernmost Bai province Lijiang should have Vajrayana religion (based on the Naxi people) while the rest of the Bai provinces should be Mahayana, rather than Theravada.

West:
New provinces, Baltistan (rename old Baltistan)
Zangskar (including Lahul and Spiti valleys)
Mustang (preferably as an OPM)
rename Purang (or redraw the province to include the city)

Central:
Rename Phagmodrupa to Ü
Rename Ü-tsang to Tsang
fix the borders between the two states
possibly start with Bhutan being independent

east:
New kingdoms Amdo and Gyelrong
remove the new eastern wasteland
take Taozhou and Songqu from China
possibly make some new provinces
Base the Kham kingdom on the Lingtsang dynasty, rather than the anachronistic Dege kingdom
Lijiang should have Vajrayana religion

Hopefully there also comes an update to the requirments to form Tibet, as the current set-up is a wee bit too easy, only asking for Garze, Tachienlu and Lhasa.

Looking at the 5 main regions of Tibet, Ngari, Tsang, Ü, Kham and Amdo, I suggest it should be multi-option requirments holding key provinces in 3 of five region (to allow for a more diverse way of unification being equally valid for all tibtan nations)
various possible combinations:
Ngari, Shigatse, Lhasa
Shigatse, Lhasa, Dege (or other important city in Kham)
Shigatse, Lhasa, Rebgong or other important city in Amdo)
Ngari, Lhasa, Dege (or any important city in Amdo or Kham)

s
for convinience of internet links I have mostly used thlib for sourcing but I also have Sam van Shaiks "Tibet a history" and Historical Atlas of Tibet by Karl Ryavec in bookform, I also visited many more intenret sources during my research and collaborated with other forumites
 
Last edited:
  • 3Like
Reactions:
Interesting read.

It may be worth drafting up a quick map of suggestions as to someone totally unfamiliar with the area (like me), names matter little when I keep referring back and forth to things.
 
Interesting read.

It may be worth drafting up a quick map of suggestions as to someone totally unfamiliar with the area (like me), names matter little when I keep referring back and forth to things.

Yes I have some draft maps in my old thread, but since I don't have a clean version of the new map to work with it's a bit harder now. If it comes to it I probably do a map once the patch lands.

How do you even pronounce Ü? Is there an adjective for it?

Ü is a fairly common sound (present in german) so if you ever heard the german pronounciation of place names like Lübeck, München or Münster. If that doesn't say anything, it is close to an 'y' sound (as in body) pronounced with rounded lips. Looking at the IPA it also has some w/v sound preceding the vowel and a glottal stop following (the sort of sound that the - represents in oh-oh). Also tibetan is tonal so if I read IPA correct the vowel should have a low rising tone. And if you look at how it is actually spelled in tibetan it's Dbus (but nothing in tibetan is spellled the way it's pronounce because they're basically spelling the same way as they did in the 10th or 11th century with no regards for temporal and regional development)
I suspect the difficulty of the name could be one of the reason they went with Phagmodrupa instead of Ü. Alternatively it could use the tibetan autonym 'Bod' which originaly only meant central tibet but has gotten a wider context and can imply the whole cultural region. Bod is a representation of how it's spelled, depending on dialects there are different ways to pronounce it, but Bhö is how it's written phonetically based on central tibetan pronounciation. (pronounced: breathy p--ö as in bird*--and another glottal stop--tone I don't get this but maybe low rising then falling???)
 
maps galore
I'm posting some of the maps I gathered during my research
map_022_front_100ppi.jpg


M32-100ppi.jpg

map_031_100ppi.jpg
 
These are some of the maps I drew in paint:
Tibet väst 2.jpg

This map shows of divided Guge (actually pretty much how it ended up in game) With kingdom Of Mustang in green. Ladakh split in three provinces: Baltistan; black, Ladakh; grey, Zangskar; dark red

index.php

For Kham and Gyelrong: Red would be a Muli province, Blue Lingtsang and yellow a heavily moved Tachienlu* province. Keep in mind I'm terrible at this job and do very approximate drawing, and the only thing I really used for guidlines in this second one was rivers, so look up in above posted map for references

*thing with Gyelrong and Tachienlu is that it's overlapping a bit with Kham, though the current Tachienlu mostly incorporate Kham territory, the city itself is the center of the gyarong chakla kingdom. the city itself is located approximately in the border area between my yellow and red circles

index.php

This is another map drawn on the borderlands, there Tachienlu in green and Songqu in yellow would become the new Gyelrong state. Red is the territories of Taozhou part of tibetan tusis (native rings or rulers under ming suzerainity) Doesn't include a possible Golok province in the south east in Rebgong province
 
Last edited:
Kham should AT LEAST be split between Kham and Amdo. It's way too huge. I'm not sure they put too much effort in remaking Tibet, really, especially eastern Tibet
 
I didn't pay attention to the northern borders when making my OP as I had so much to cover in it. But I'm very sceptical about removing the Kunlun wasteland in the fashion they now done. I don't see access between Ngari and Yarkand, or direct access from Yarkand to Rebgong province to be historicaly accurate. I might be wrong but I never read of any movement of troops along those routes. Only Ladakh was ever invaded by central asians.
 
Kham should AT LEAST be split between Kham and Amdo. It's way too huge. I'm not sure they put too much effort in remaking Tibet, really, especially eastern Tibet
Let's take a closer look at Amdo.

Amdo.jpg

The red shape defines what I would like to call core Amdo, in a political sense. The region itself didn't universally become known as Amdo until 17th-18th century, but has a long history. Being the region with closest access to china it is the region most influenced by china, which can be seen by the chinese conquest of the Tzhongka kingdom (Xinning province) in 12th century. This province retains vajrayana religion to show of it's tibetan legacy and it was here the 'first' Dalai Lama and foudner of the Gelugpa sect were born.
The areas to the west that I exclude here, were mostly nomadic and low populated territory, including the independent Golok confederation in southeastern rebgong. This area still held significant value as it was one of the main sources of horses in the sino-tibetan horse-tea trade. It was largely to maintain control over the important trade that Ming continued it's political presence in eastern Amdo, primarily in the Taozhou province, which included two major native kingdoms, a kingdom in Hezou (modern day Linxia) which was under heavy Ming influence and the Choné kingdom, under less direct chinese influence. The chinese presence were felt in the region as they bestowed titles upon native rulers (though not actually establishing the rulers) indicating their subject status to the Ming dynasty and also established trade station and military outposts throughout the territory.
Choné was definitly not the only polity, as many, many small kingdoms existed, most often in various powerrelationships to each other and the Ming. There is supposed to have existed over 40 tusis at the same time in modern Qinghai province. Other major polities at times also included the important Rebgong monastery which established political presence during the late Yuan era and then continued as a significant political entity for centuries. There also existed Upper Mongol kingdoms in the area (the early ones before 16th century are based on Mongols moving to tibet before Djinghis Khans empire and their descendants today are speakers of distinct south mongolian varieties).

Later on Mongols (Oirats, Ordos) migrated to Kokonur (Mongol name for northern Amdo) and established rule over the area culminating with Güshi Khan over the Khosuts who conquered all of Tibet and put the fifth Dalai Lama in charge, ushering in the Ganden Podrag era (which would last until the chinese invasion in the 1950's). Previously I have suggested making an uncolonized province in the area, in which either the Khosut Khanate would appear, or would be ceded to an appropriate mongol state (this would require more mongol state; see the mongol/tartary/north asia threads I, Jkiller, Warial, Semi-lobster etc. have worked on. I guess this concept will (if ever implemented) have to wait for a Mongol update.

Further south in the Songqu province we see more small tibetan polities, independent monasteries and the region start to overlap with the Gyelrong region.

Gyegu which is part of the Amdo area in game is part of the Kham region in reality, so if split it should not become part of Amdo.

This is a brief summary about the region, more detailed anlyses can be find at thlib, first one gives a history of the politics of Amdo and it's relationship to China. Second one gives a linklist to essays on several of the polities in Amdo
http://www.thlib.org/places/politie...es.thlib.org/features/24106/descriptions/1228
http://www.thlib.org/places/polities/list/amdo/

Reading these sources I find at a minimum, Amdo should be split of from Kham and start of as a tributary of Ming. If we skip out on Gyelrong and Mongols and new provinces for now, we could at least divide Kham into Kham and Amdo. Amdo would start with Rebgong, Taozhou (the only province that would need some redrawing) and Songqu,
While Kham would maintain the Kham area and Gyegu province.
 
Last edited:
Anychances of seeing some improvements to the tibet map @Trin Tragula ? Or any point in continue trying to argue that point ahead of Dharma?
 
I think Eastern Tibet will come later together with China update.
China is still far from detailed enough given immense history it had.

If it is the case that eastern Tibet gets it update later, we're still having issues in western and central Tibet that I discuss in op
 
The upcoming update already is remaking Tibet, if they are updating Tibet now, update it fully.
 
The problem with having anything that is displayed as text on the map (tag names, province names, cultures, etc.) be a single character (in this case the Kingdom/province of Ü) is that the EUIV engine doesn't support one-letter names, i.e. they won't show up as text. Forgive me if this sounds dumb, but is there a possible alternate spelling of Ü that EUIV could support? Maybe Ue or something?
 
The problem with having anything that is displayed as text on the map (tag names, province names, cultures, etc.) be a single character (in this case the Kingdom/province of Ü) is that the EUIV engine doesn't support one-letter names, i.e. they won't show up as text. Forgive me if this sounds dumb, but is there a possible alternate spelling of Ü that EUIV could support? Maybe Ue or something?
In Tibetan Pinyin it's Wü, in Wylie it's dBus.
 
using 'Bod' would also be viable, the word originally means central tibet lhasa region (i.e. roughly the same as Ü) but has come to refer to all of tibet later on.
 
The upcoming update already is remaking Tibet, if they are updating Tibet now, update it fully.

If they are planning on updating China or Tartary soon, I can see that they might do a little bit more job with eastern tibet then, particularly Amdo if they want to implement upper mongols later on (still not excusing that wasteland cutting off the Jinchuan valleys -.-)

Fo western and central tibet though, all changes should be done now. The historically inaccurate set up in central tibet wih 'Phagmodrupa' holding Shigatse and 'Ü-Tsang' holding Lhasa is just plain wrong.

This might not affect anyone but me(?) but personally I can't stand the current naming of Ü-Tsang vs Phagmodrupa. Just so odd that it's really bothering me, using the portmonneau 'Ü-Tsang' for the Ringpungpa (an area they never fully controlled) and dynasty name Phagmodrupa just clashes badly.

As are the naming of the modern Gilgit area as 'Baltistan'. the set up in those regions, and hopefully adding a proper baltistan province, a zangskar province and kingdom of Mustang are changes that should still be doen in an india focused patch (as Ladakh and Mustang are part of the indian subcontinent)
 
Last edited:
I think we should tag @Fryz in this thread, as he is responsible for the new southern-Tibet update.
 
Let's take a closer look on Western Tibet, a region which is today mostly within India and Pakistan.

Since Guge was done very well in the update, and I already included Mustang and Dolpo well enough in previous posts I will focus on the two provinces of Ladakh and Baltistan for this post.

20180522111249_1.jpg

And let's take a look at a detailed, modern map, which in terms of the main regions/areas has not changed for five hundred years:

Jammu-and-Kashmir-map-new-No.1.jpg

So we can once and for all conclude that the actual province of Baltistan, with it's historic (and current capitol) is in the game province named Ladakh. It also seems to include parts of the area labeled 'Hunza and Nagar', particular the Shaksgam valley.

The Baltistan province includes the Gilgit agency area, with most of Hunza and Nagar valleys and seems to extend south into the Chitral principality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitral_(princely_state) (I will focus on areas inhabited by tibetans so I'm just droping this link here if anyone would be interested)

For the area I focus on, I want to highlight a few principalities/kingdoms that extisted in the area. Granted, there existed at times many smaller but I will not delve into that sort of minutia as it anyway have no place in EUIV either.

Detailed map of tibetan cultural regions
M32-100ppi.jpg


I have made few posts in the past to argue for a Zanskar province, including the Lahul and Spiti valleys and Purig.

Nyi ma mgon later divided his lands into three parts. The king's eldest son dPal gyi mgon became ruler of Mar-yul (Ladakh), his second son bKra shis mgon received Guge-Puhrang, and the third son lDe gtsug mgon received Zanskar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guge

Until the 15th century Zanskar existed as a more or less independent Buddhist Kingdom ruled by between two and four related royal families. Since the 15th century, Zanskar has been subordinate to Ladakh, sharing its fortunes and misfortunes. In 1822 a coalition of Kulu, Lahoul, and Kinnaur invaded Zanskar, plundering the country and destroying the Royal palace at Padum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanskar

By the 10th century, upper Lahaul, Spiti and Zanskarhad been incorporated into the vast Guge kingdom of western Tibet [...] After the kings of Ladakh were defeated by Mongol-Tibetan armies in the 18th century, the region was divided up by the surrounding powers. Lower Lahaul fell to the rajas of Chamba, Upper Lahaul came under the sway of the rajas of Kullu and geographically isolated Spiti became part of Ladakh.
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/india/himachal-pradesh/lahaul-and-spiti/history

Present-day Kargil was not the natural capital of the region, or Purig as it was also known. Earlier, Purig consisted of a number of small but independent kingdoms, which included Chiktan, Phokhar, Sot and the Suru Valley. These tiny principalities would often fight among themselves over petty issues. Gasho “Thatha Khan”, an exiled Buddhist prince in the 9th century AD, is perhaps the first ruler who brought together all the territories under a united administration. Another sultan of Purig extended his kingdom to include Zanskar, (Jammu and Kashmir) and Sodh(Karchaykhar at Barsoo,Sankoo, pretty much the territory of the present Kargil district. He is referred to as “the Purig Sultan”. His capital was based at Karpokhar in the Suru Valley. The other famous kings of Kargil were Boti Khan, Abdal Khan, Amrood Choo, Tsering Malik, Kunchok Sherab Stan and Thi Sultan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil

It is said that it was the period of Ali Sher Khan Anchan, the famous ruler of Skardu, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries which had a great influence on the area. This prince from Baltistan conquered most of the principalities of Purig and introduced Balti culture in the Kargil district.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil

While most sources cited are wikipedia, I have printed sources backing most of it up)

From the qoutes posted above, I think we can conclude that the area depicted as one province in game, just in i's southern third had dynamic politics, consisting of many smaller states. It shoudl merit splitting the large Ladakh province and make a Zanskar province, including the Purig area and extend into the himalayan wasteland to include Lahul and Spiti valleys. All four regions are marked out on the detailed map I posted above.
For the Kinnaur district, I suggest looking at the Bashahr principality if the developers are interested in developing that aspect further: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashahr

Muslim lands in Baltistan and Gilgit

Baltistan Once we drop the Baltistan name for the western province, we can introduce a proper Baltistan province in the western part of current Ladakh province.

Baltistan also fell into many smaller principalities after the dissolution of the tibetan empire. Islam was propagated in Baltistan during the 14th-15th century and around 1500 a dynasty of presumably turkic origins, the Maqpon founded the city of Skardu and came to dominate in Baltistan (though according to legends they go as far back as 12th century)

Gilgit, as we can rename the old Baltistan province seems to extend into the south and might possibly include the chitral state, but I will not delve into that matter. Gilgit had also been part of the tibetan empire, who knew the region as 'Bruzha' after the Burusho people. By 15th century the region had largely fell outside tibetan cultural sphere and were mainly settled by dardic people and had converted to islam. According to legends, a muslim dynasty was founded in the 14th century, called Trakhan, whicc founded the city of Gilgit and came to rule the area until early 19th century (the founding is of legendary character but the dynasty is real and rulled for many centuries)
http://beautifulgilgit.weebly.com/history.html

Hunza and Nagar the northernmost reaches of modern day Pakistan is the home to a small group of people known as the Burusho. They speak a language isolate (Burushaski) and were for some time believed to be ancestors of Alexander the greats macedonian soldiers (thouroughly debunked today but I actually met ppl believing this/having read this online). They formed small principalities in the north, two of which became princely states (british vassals) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunza_(princely_state) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagar_(princely_state) Together these states covers around 15 thousand square kilometers, and personally I think it would be a blast to have a province made for the Burushaki people. I know by pdx rules, there can't be a Burushu culture, and making an exception for such a unique and isolated people would cause an uproar among everyone who had their favourite culture denied, but personally I would love having a Burushu culture up in the high mountains of Karakoram.

So what do I think should become of these three provinces? I actually think they could all form their own OPM's. I think the region would benefit form a few smaller states and they all have their historic reason to be reprsented as such. Yet I wouldn't see a problem with having them as just one country.


Location of Purang in red
Tibet.png

Western.Tibet-.jpg

Please redraw or rename. Personally I'd prefer rename to Mangyul after the kingdom