Lake Pelku
From space, May 1997. North is down.
Lake Pelku
Location	Tibet Autonomous Region    Shigatse Prefecture       Gyirong County and Nyalam County
Coordinates	28°55′N 85°35′E / 28.917°N 85.583°E / 28.917; 85.583
Type	brackish
Primary outflows	None (endorheic).
Max. length	27 km (17 mi)
Surface elevation	4,591 m (15,070 ft)

Lake Pelku^[1] (Tibetan: དཔལ་ཁུད་མཚོ, Wylie: dpal khud mtsho, THL: pel khü tso),^[2] Pelkhu,^[3] or Paiku (Chinese: 佩枯错; pinyin: pèigǔ cuò)^[a] is a lake at 4,591 meters (15,062 ft) elevation on the Tibetan Plateau in Shigatse Prefecture. It is 18 kilometers (11 mi) south of the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) River, bordering Saga County, Gyirong County, and Nyalam County.

The lake is 27 kilometers (17 mi) long and 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) wide at its narrowest. It is surrounded by mountains reaching 5,700 to 6,000 meters (18,700 to 19,700 ft). Streams fed by glaciers cascade to the valley floor, but most sink into alluvial deposits before reaching the lake.

The surrounding catchment is an endorheic basin with no outlet. It would overflow into the Yarlung Tsangpo with a water level about 100 meters (330 ft) higher. The lake's brackish water is evidence that it has not overflowed in hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

• National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• Chan, Victor (1994), Tibet Handbook, Moon Publications – via archive.org
• Dorje, Gyurme (2004), Footprint Tibet Handbook with Bhutan (3rd ed.), Bath: Footprint Handbooks, ISBN 1-903471-30-3 – via archive.org

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