Hongyuan Airport — Ngawa (Hongyuan), China

Hongyuan Airport, serving the town of Hongyuan in Sichuan Province's Ngawa region, sits at 11,600 feet above sea level, well over two miles up and among the highest airports anywhere in this dataset, with a single runway built to operate on the high Tibetan Plateau grasslands that stretch across this part of western Sichuan. Ngawa sits far from the Sichuan Basin cities most travelers associate with the province, in a predominantly Tibetan cultural area at extreme altitude. This remote highland region gets an air link that spares travelers an exceptionally long and difficult mountain road journey to reach lower-altitude cities.