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The Himalaya Range, or Himalayas for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. By extension, it is also the name of the massive mountain system which includes the Karakoram, the Hindu Kush, the Toba Kakar, and a host of minor ranges extending from the Pamir Knot. The name is from Sanskrit himalaya, a tatpurusa compound meaning "the abode of snow" (from hima "snow", and alaya "abode"; see also Himavat). As words, the expression "Himalaya Range" is similar to the expression Sierra Nevada. Together, the Himalayan mountain system is the planet's highest and home to the world's highest peaks: the Eight-thousanders, including Mount Everest and K2. To comprehend the enormous scale of this mountain range consider that Aconcagua, in the Andes, at 6,962 m, is the highest peak outside the Himalayas, while the Himalayan system has over 100 mountains exceeding 7,200 meters. The Himalayas stretch across six nations: Bhutan, the Tibet province of China, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan. They are the source of three of the world's major river systems, the Indus, the Ganga-Brahmaputra, and the Yangtze. Approximately 1.3 billion people live in the drainage basin of the Himalayan rivers. (Quote from wikipedia.org) About the Author Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817 - 1911) Hooker was born in Halesworth, Suffolk. He was the second son of the famous botanist Sir William Jackson Hooker and Maria Sarah Turner, eldest daughter of the banker Dawson Turner and sister-in-law of Francis Palgrave. From age seven, Hooker attended his father's lectures at Glasgow University where he was Regius Professor of Botany. Joseph formed an early interest in plant distribution and the voyages of explorers like Captain James Cook. He wa