The second highest mountain in the world has several names, but is best known in the English speaking world as K2.
Qogir (Qogir Feng) is the local Chinese name for the second-highest mountain above sea level, 8,611 m (28,251 ft), in the Karakoram range, in a disputed region of Pakistan and China. it lies partly in China and partly in the Pakistani-administered portion of the Kashmir region. The mountain is located in the Karakoram segment of the Himalayan range, on the border between Gilgit-Baltistan, Northern Pakistan and the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang, China. in 1856, British surveyor Captain T.G. Montgomery of the Great Trignometric Survey of India sighted the cluster of peaks from about 100 + miles away and entered them as K1, K2, K3, K4, the K standing for the Karakoram Range. The modern day documentation and map making had begun. Only K2 retains its name. The rest are called by their local names. K2 [8,611 meters] was climbed by the Italians Lino Lacedelli [aged 29] and Achille Compagnoni [aged 39] on July 31, 1954 after a century of exploration.
It was later unofficially called Mount Godwin-Austen, although this alternative name has largely gone out of use. The mountain is named in honor of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Haversham Godwin-Austen (6 July 1834 – 2 December 1923), was an English topographer, geologist and surveyor. Godwin-Austen served for many years on the Trigonometrical Survey of India, retiring in 1877.
Standing at China’s west gate in the eastern part of the Pamirs on the “roof of the world” is the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang, a town built up since 1950s. It is the place where the ancient Tajik ethnic group has lived generation after generation. Most of the 41,028 Tajiks live in compact communities in Taxkorgan, and the rest are scattered over areas in southern Xinjiang, including Shache, Zepu, Yecheng and Pishan. The Tajiks in Taxkorgan live alongside Uygurs, Kirgizs, Xibes and Hans.
Taxkorgan is perched at the highest part of the Pamirs. The world’s second highest peak, Mount Qogir, towers in the south, and in the north stands Mount Muztagata, “the father of ice peaks.” In addition, several dozen perennially snow-capped mountains, 5,000 to 6,000 meters above sea level, dot the 25,000-square-kilometer county. For centuries, the Tajiks have been engaged in animal husbandry and farming by making use of the luxuriant pasturage and abundant water resources. Every spring, they sow highland barley, pea, wheat and other cold-resistant crops. They drive their herds to highland grazing grounds in early summer, return to harvest the crops in autumn and then spend winter at home, leading a semi-nomadic life.
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