Pakistan Karakoram, Hindu Kush, and Pamir mountain ranges (see mountains of Pakistan), which contain some of the world's highest peaks, including five of the fourteen eight-thousanders (mountain peaks over ), which attract adventurers and mountaineers from all over the world, notably K2 () and Nanga Parbat (). The Balochistan Plateau lies in the west and the Thar Desert in the east. The Indus River and its tributaries flow through the country from the Kashmir region to the Arabian Sea. There is an expanse of alluvial plains along it in the Punjab and Sindh. The climate varies from tropical to temperate, with
K2 incorrectly showing that K2 was taller than Mount Everest, and therefore the tallest mountain in the world. A corrected measurement was made in 1987, but by that point the claim that K2 was the tallest mountain in the world had already made it into many news reports and reference works. The mountains of K2 and Broad Peak, and the area westward to the lower reaches of Sarpo Laggo glacier consist of metamorphic rocks, known as the "K2 Gneiss" and part of the Karakoram Metamorphic Complex. The K2 Gneiss consists of a mixture of orthogneiss and biotite-rich paragneiss. On the south