[4] The Line of Control with Pakistan-administered Gilgit-Baltistan is 80 kilometres (50 mi) west of the Depsang Plains, with the Siachen Glacier in-between.

[10] Francis Younghusband, who travelled here in the late 19th century, described the area as follows:[11] The Depsang Plains are more than seventeen thousand feet above sea-level, and are of gravel, as bare as a gravel-walk to a suburban villa.

Across these plains blew blinding squalls of snow, and at night, though it was now the middle of summer, there were several degrees of frost.In 1962, China and India fought a war over the border dispute, following which the Depsang Plains have been divided between the two countries across a Line of Actual Control (LAC), which runs east of the traditional caravan route.

[b] It currently serves as a military camp of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the Indian Army on the Darbuk-Shyok-DBO road, about 15 kilometres on the India's side of the LAC.

[15] The Depsang Nala stream flows in the gorge from the west and takes a turn to the south at Qizil Langar.

The Depsang Plains were regularly traversed by trade caravans, coming via the Karakoram Pass in the north from Yarkand beyond.

The first one of the season passed on June 28th, coming from Sanju on the Yarkand road; then more and larger ones came; in July there were four in one day, almost all travelling from Central Asia toward Leh—the Ladakhis usually do their trading at home.

The caravans were of all sizes, from small groups of 3 or 4 men with 5 or 6 animals to large parties with 40 or more pack-animals; the men on foot or riding asses, the better-to-do merchants on caparisoned horses ...Filippi also wrote that the experienced caravaners passed through the Depsang Plains without stopping, travelling a distance of 31 miles between Daulat Beg Oldi and Murgo in a single day.

The Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru told the Parliament that the Chinese wish to treat Xinjiang as a "closed area".

Subsequently, China built the Xinjiang–Tibet highway through Aksai Chin starting the Sino-Indian border dispute, which persists till the present day.

From south to north, it passes through Sultan Chushku, Murgo, Burtsa and Qizil Langar, to reach Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO).

[citation needed] In 1893, Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore, in his daily records of his travels with Major Roche through Ladakh, Tibet and Pamirs, wrote of seeing musk deer, kiang, Tibetan antelope and a butterfly in the region in and around the Depsang Plains.

[30] In 1906, Sven Hedin had travelled east from Burtsa to the Aksai Chin lake on the traditional silk road.

[32] Filippo de Filippi, who explored the region in the 1910s, wrote that "the surface of the [Depsang] plateau is a mass of minute detritus, and is entirely devoid of vegetation, except for occasional patches of a yellowish-green plant".

[38] DRDO-reared double-humped Bactrian camels (originally used along the silk route) will be deployed at DBO and Depsang by the Indian Army for patrolling and transportation.

[48] The Chinese said little by way of justification for this advancement other than to claim that it was their "traditional customary boundary" which was allegedly formed through a "long historical process".

India's Intelligence Bureau patrols had come across indications of Chinese activity in the Depsang Plains prior to 1958.

The Indian posts, set up in accordance with India's "forward policy", were manned by the 14th battalion of the Jammu and Kashmir Militia (later Ladakh Scouts), and were mostly of a platoon or a section strength.

By 24 October, the withdrawal was completed, with the Indians continuing to hold Saser Brangsa, Murgo, Sultan Chushku and the Galwan estuary on the Shyok River.

[54] The one exception was the Burtsa Nala valley to the south of Depsang Plains, where the Chinese eliminated the "bulge" in the Indian territory granted in 1960.

It came to light that the Chinese troops had been blocking Indian patrols from proceeding along the Raki Nala valley near a location called "bottleneck" since 2017.

[68] After a resolution to the standoff at Pangong Lake in February 2021, it was reported that the Chinese started strengthening their positions at Depsang.