The West Kunlun Mountains in the northwest of the Tibetan Plateau, where terrain undulates largely and climate is arid and frigid. In order to well understand the distribution of permafrost in the mountains, the section between Dahongliutan and Qitaidaban along the State Highway 219 was chosen as a typical area. Many survey methods were adopted,including drilling survey,geophysical prospecting and exploration pit. The lower boundary of permafrost was determined through comprehensive analysis of the survey data. The lower boundary of permafrost is 4 800 m a.s.l. in the south slopes, 4 650 m a.s.l. in the north slopes, and 4 700 m a.s.l. in the east and west slopes. According to the lower boundaries in different orientations and the data of digital elevation map, permafrost distribution model in the typical area of the West Kunlun Mountains was established in the ARCGIS platform. The simulation results based on the model show that the permafrost area is 3 136.3 km2, accounting for 89.4 percent of the region. The simulated permafrost area is a little more than that derived from the Tibetan Plateau Permafrost Map (TPPM). By comparing the two maps, the following differences are found: 1) the permafrost map derived from survey is able to describe the river talik more precisely than that from the TPPM;2) the river talik in the TPPM is far smaller than the actual talik derived from survey;3) seasonal frozen area in the wide valley between Dahongliutan and Qitaidaban was magnified in the TPPM.

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