Merchant Association
of Leh.

Four centuries at the crossroads.

• 17th c.

  Leh becomes the seat of the Namgyal kings and a fortified staging post on the trans-Himalayan trade road, its caravanserais sheltering merchants and pack animals through the winter passes.

• 19th c.

  The bazaar thrives as the halfway point of Asia's high-altitude trade — wool, silk, tea, salt, borax and turquoise change hands here before continuing on to Punjab, Kashmir, Yarkand or Lhasa.

• 1947–62

  Partition, and the sealing of the frontiers with Tibet and Xinjiang, cut the old caravan roads. The bazaar's trade turns inward, toward the district it still stands in.

• 1974

  Ladakh opens to international travel for the first time, and the old bazaar begins a second life as a meeting point of trade and travellers alike.

• 1999

  Traders of the Leh bazaar register the Merchant Association of Leh, giving the marketplace a collective, formal voice for the first time in its history.

• Today

  Roughly 15,000 stakeholders trade under its banner — from ready-made garments to welding and fabrication — still meeting where the old routes once crossed.