Gakog (Hongyuan) County (Tibetan: སྐ་ཆུ་རྫོང་། or སྐ་ཁོག་རྫོང་།; Chinese: 红原县) is a county in the north of Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. There is a river called Ka Chu/Gaqu (སྐ་ཆུ།) in the area and kog means "valley" or "area"; thus it means the area of the Ga River.[2]
This is the only county under the Prefecture with entirely yak herding pastoralists. The average altitude above the sea level is 3,600 m (11,800 ft). About 8,398 square meter and about 40,000 people reside (2004) mostly Amdo Tibetan. The language is spoken is one of the most conservative dialect among the Amdo Tibetan varieties. The county seat is Kyungqu [zh] (a.k.a. Khyungchu).
Southwest University for Nationalities maintains the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau Ecological Environmental Protection and Advanced Technology for Animal Husbandry in Hongyuan County.[3]
Hongyuan has a subarctic climate (KöppenDwc) with short, mild summers and cold winters, although not as cold as subarctic climates at higher latitudes. It is affected by the Asian Monsoon.
Climate data for Hongyuan, elevation 3,492 m (11,457 ft), (1991–2020 normals, extremes 1981–2010)