Ladakh ("land of high passes") Situated in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir between the Kunlun mountain range in the north and the main Great Himalayas to the south. Ladakh, which is inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and ethnic Tibetan, is one of the most sparsely populated regions in the area.

The Ladakhi language belongs to the western Tibetan dialect of the Sino-Tibetan language family.

Ladakh is renowned for its remote mountain beauty and culture. It is sometimes called "Little Tibet" as it has been strongly influenced by Tibetan culture. Historically, Ladakh was a Buddhist kingdom which included Baltistan and Aksai Chin which are now administered by Pakistan and China respectively. It had a strategic location at the crossroads of major trade routes, but since the Chinese authorities closed the borders with Tibet and Central Asia in the 1960s, international trade has dwindled except for tourism. Since 1974 the Indian Government has successfully encouraged tourism in Ladakh. Ladakh has been a focal point of numerous wars between India and Pakistan and the Sino-Indian War of 1962. The Saltoro ridge in the Siachen glacier region is an active military zone even today.

Today Ladakh consists of two districts — Leh and Kargil. The largest town in Ladakh is Leh. A majority of Ladakhis are Tibetan Buddhists and the rest are mostly Shia Muslims.Some Ladakhi activists have in recent times called for Ladakh to be constituted as a union territory because of its religious and cultural differences with predominantly Muslim Kashmir.

Quite unlike other regions in the Indian Himalaya, Ladakh experiences nine months of winter and three months of summer.The best time to visit Ladakh is in the summer - from early June to end September.Beyond that period , temperatures plunge to sub-Arctic levels and the region gets too cold for comfort.By October most of the trekking routes in the higher altitude areas are closed on account of heavy snowfall.
 
Another good reason to visit Ladakh during the summer months is that this is the time when some of Ladakh's most important Gompas or Budhist monastries host their spectacular annual festivals.