Talk:Himalayas

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Wikipedia

Discussion: Clarifying the Geographic Extent of the Himalayas

History

@Fowler&fowler, any mountain range will have some kind of history, even if it's just the history of people discovering/measuring/climbing the mountain. For example, the Himalayas have Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay as a prominent part of their human history. GreekApple123 (talk) 19:05, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

@GreekApple123: Apologies for the delay in replying. If you don't mind waiting a bit longer, I will attend to something else I need to fix quickly. Many thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:43, 24 February 2025 (UTC)
Hello again GreekApple123. Your question is a good one.
This is a geography article, but it differs from a country or city with a history section. So what is the difference? Physical geography articles, especially ones with topics considered "transboundary" or "that which cross international borders," such as many a mountain range or river, have histories that are not a priori well-defined. Are they geologic histories, physiographic histories, hydrological histories, climate histories, biodiversity histories, histories of ethnic groups that live in or along these geographies (and in turn of languages spoken by them), all of which generally also transcend boundaries, or are they histories of notable people? For better or worse, the precedent on Wikipedia and elsewhere (such as Britannica) is to give the last history the least emphasis unless the notability is part of a transboundary human notability, in which case the latter gets more emphasis and notice than the human individuals.
Thus, if you look at the table of contents of Britannica 's article Himalayas, you will find some of the same early sections as ours. These relate to physical features, drainage, climate, or other transboundary issues that are not human-specific, such as biodiversity. But once we get to humans, the sections are Ethnicities, which is mostly about spoken languages, economy, transportation, study, i.e. scholarly investigation, and exploration. Mountaineering is a part of the last. It has a small section about its general features in the late 19th- and early-to-mid 20th centuries. Hillary and Tenzing find a one-sentence mention only at the end of the latter.
To give a Wikipedia example, please examine the post-1947 history section of the WP featured article "Darjeeling." It mentions Tenzing and Hillary at the end of the second paragraph. Tenzing was a man who lived in Darjeeling for the more significant part of his adult life. Still, his specific mention there, and Hillary's later, are part of a more general demographic, which receives more emphasis in the paragraph.
I am not enthusiastic about having a general history section here for these reasons. We can add something later to the proposed Tourism section for which some sources have been added, but I think we need to attend to the more vital sections first.
Thanks for your patience, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:49, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

"Climate-change concerns" section: Undue weight issues

I shall be adding cleanup templates to the section "Climate-related concerns," which was added by OliviaAve (talk · contribs) as "Climate justice," in their only edit on Wikipedia without any edit summary on 16 December 2023. It does not meet the due weight requirements for a vital article such as this. The diff above includes the edit for inspection by interested editors. I am sorry I did not notice this earlier. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:59, 24 February 2025 (UTC) Copying RegentsPark, Vanamonde and updating. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:16, 25 February 2025 (UTC)

The entire edit from user OliviaAve should be removed. The section is far too lengthy and specific for a general article on a region, displays obvious bias, and contains errors. At the most the climate change section should be one paragraph. Linktex (talk) 14:15, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Better image including "Greater India"

"Greater India" (not to be confused with the cultural-political concept of Greater India, or the geopolitical Akhand Bharat) is a specific geologic term used to describe the hypothetical northern continental shelf of the Indian landmass that was subducted (as specifically stated in the sources)/ underthrust under Asia in the Himalayas collision. Its existence is widely postulated in geological studies, though its extent is disputed . I think that the map that I added showing the Himalayas collision was significantly more realistic than the cartoony diagram that was used previously, and I see no reason to remove it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:40, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

There is no danger of confusing a POV neologism among Indian geologists with POV obsolescence among Indian nationalist historians. The cartoon is what there is in frisch et al. People understand that a postulated original whose extent is not known is as much a distortion as the cartoon. Please read paragraphs 2 and 3 for a description of the Himalayan orogeny and crustal thickening of Tibet. Nappe formation of the upper continental crust is not subduction, ditto for the middle crust. Only the lowest subducted. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:00, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
Some clarifying points. 1. a POV neologism among Indian geologists It's widely used by international geologists, who often use "India" with the meaning of "Indian subcontinent". 2. While it is widely agreed that the Indian plate collision within the last 25 million years had mostly subthrust rather than subducted the material, the prior history of the Indian subcontinent is unclear. It is widely agreed that some continental crust was subducted prior to this, either directly attached to Insular India or from a separate microcontinent that separated from India during the Cretaceous and hit Asia first: . Between initial collision recorded in the Himalaya at 60 Ma and the onset of horizontal Indian underthrusting [around 25 Ma], thousands of kilometers of subduction consumed Indian plate lithosphere. Three endmember scenarios invoke that all or part of this lithosphere was continental, challenging geodynamic and paleogeographic reconstruction paradigms, or that most of this lithosphere was oceanic, challenging magmatic and orogenic architecture paradigms. Having read this source, I agree that perhaps the diagram I changed unduly presents one viewpoint too strongly where there is signficiant disagreement, but I think the solution here it to take diagrams from the paper I have cited in this comment (which is CC-BY 4.0) in order to present the differing viewpoints, which would be far more useful than the current illustration. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:53, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
Nah, it is not used widely enough to be included in this high-level, broad scale, article. You are just quoting rather then summarizing in idiomatic English. This is an article with a high-level summary, not a pace to park narrow-scale varieties of opinion. If it is not there in Frish et al, then it doesn't belong here. From the few exchanges with you thus far, it seems you don't understand the differences between broad-scale and narrow-scale. You favor narrow-scale journal articles and create eccentric texts. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
PS And we have had issues with other editors who spam images from CC-BY 4.0 journal content into articles and create a misfit between the prose of the article with the specialized, narrow-scale illustrations of their journal content. The infestation in certain instances have become so deep, especially with further cropping or image-editing of the diagrams, that an army of editors have not been able to root it out. See Brahmi_script#Characteristics for an example. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:13, 3 June 2025 (UTC)
Insular India, an article created by a banned editor, is also eccentric, even fringe, usage. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:53, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

"Himalayan foothills" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Himalayan foothills has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 August 17 § Himalayan foothills until a consensus is reached. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 15:02, 17 August 2025 (UTC)