Editing Skardu (section)

==Etymology==
The name "Skardu" is believed to be derived from the [[Balti language|Balti]] word meaning "a lowland between two high places."<ref name="Dani" /> The two referenced "high places" are [[Shigar]] city, and the high-altitude [[Satpara Lake]]<ref name="Dani" /> Local people might tend to write the name as སྐར་དོ་ according to how they pronounce it. But the meaning of which, as stated above, corresponds to the Tibetan word མདོ. In the course of the history of Balti, bilabial sound /m/ as a prefix has been lost, and the vowel /o/ has turned into /u/, the same as many other dialects of Tibetan.  

The first mention of Skardu dates to the first half of the 16th century. [[Mirza Muhammad Haidar Dughlat|Mirza Haidar]] (1499–1551) described ''Askardu'' in the 16th-century text ''Tarikh-i-Rashidi Baltistan'' as a district of the area. The first mention of Skardu in European literature was made by Frenchman [[François Bernier]] (1625–1688), who mentions the city by the name of ''Eskerdou.'' After his mention, Skardu was quickly drawn into Asian maps produced in Europe, and was first mentioned as ''Eskerdow'' the map "Indiae orientalis nec non insularum adiacentium nova descriptio" publisbed by the Dutch engraver [[Nicolaes Visscher II]] between 1680 and 1700.<ref>{{cite web |title=Southern Tibet : vol.7 / Page 91 (Grayscale High Resolution Image) |url=http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/VII-1-62/V-7/page-hr/0091.html.en |website=dsr.nii.ac.jp}}</ref>