Batang Town (; Chinese: 巴塘 or 八塘; Pinyin: Bātáng), or Xiaqiong Town (Chinese: 夏邛镇; Pinyin: Xiàqióng Zhèn), is a town in Batang County, Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, in the China on the main route between Chengdu and Lhasa, Tibet, and just east of the Jinsha ('Golden Sands') River, or Upper Yangtze River. It is at an elevation of . Descriptions, geography and products The name is a transliteration from Tibetan meaning a vast grassland where sheep can be heard everywhere (from ba – the sound made by the sheep + Tibetan tang which means a plain or steppe). According to one source the name in Chinese is 八塘, Pinyin: Bātáng, but, according to The Contemporary Atlas of China (1988), it should be written 巴塘, which also is rendered Bātáng in Pinyin. It is alternatively known as Xiaqiong. 'The plain of Batang, which runs east and west, is some in length, with a breadth of from three-quarters of a mile to a mile [1.2 to 1.6 km]. In the high mountains surrounding it there are three openings—the valley of the Hsiao-pa-chung River to the south-east by which we entered, and two valleys to the north-east and south-west by which the Batang River obtains ingress and egress. Three roads lead along these valleys—to Litang, to the State of Dergé, whose frontier is a couple of days' march distant, and to Tibet and Yunnan respectively." Mr. A. Hosie, the British Consul at Chengdu, who visited Batang in September, 1904, reported that there was a small lamasery and the industries consisted of making black leather and a barley beer (chang). He reported that the population was about 2,000 with some 400 Tibetan houses and about 500 families "only 70 to 80 of which are Chinese." Batang also played a significant role for hundreds of years in the traditional tea and horse trade between China, Tibet and India, being an important caravan stop for mule trains on the 'tea horse road' between Ya'an in Sichuan and Lhasa. William Mesny in 1905 described Batang (which he visited in 1877) as having a population of 300 families consisting "only of Tibetans and half-castes." There were two hereditary princes ("Wang 王, King or Prince") claiming to be descendants of chiefs from Yunnan. The old Tibetan name of the town, M'Bah, is a transliteration from Tibetan meaning a vast grassland where sheep can be heard everywhere (from