Yarlung Tsangpo: The deepest canyon on land hides a tree taller than the Statue of Liberty

The Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon is the world’s largest terrestrial canyon — longer than even the Grand Canyon in Arizona and deeper than every other known canyon on land (the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean surpasses it).

The canyon is named after the Yarlung Tsangpo River, which adventurers have dubbed the “Everest of rivers,” because it is mostly inaccessible and has the highest average elevation, at 13,000 feet (4,000 meters), of any major river on Earth. The headwaters of the Yarlung Tsangpo are located in the west of the Tibet Autonomous Region at Angsi Glacier, and the river then meanders east across the Tibetan Plateau before bending sharply southwestward to join up with the Brahmaputra River.