Hkakabo Razi

Hkakabo Razi National Park was established in 1998 at the northern tip of Myanmar, in Kachin State, where the borders with China and India meet, and protects some 3,812 km².

Its summit, Hkakabo Razi, is around 5,880 metres and is regarded as the highest mountain in South-East Asia, although its exact altitude and its primacy over other neighbouring peaks have been the subject of dispute and contradictory measurements. The massif is the southern end of the eastern Himalaya and preserves glaciers, the most southerly in the range.

Its biological value comes from the extreme gradient: in a short space it passes from the subtropical forest of the valleys to temperate forest, high-altitude conifers, alpine scrub and permanent snow. That succession, together with its position at the meeting point of the Himalayan, Indochinese and Chinese biogeographical regions, produces a very high diversity and notable endemism: the Putao leaf deer, one of the smallest deer in the world, was described here in 1997. The park is home to takin, red panda and Asian black bear. It is an ASEAN Heritage Park, and its remote isolation, combined with the armed conflict in Kachin State, means that effective management is very limited.