One of the most extensive public datasets of geographic data is Open Street Maps. Let's play around with some interesting type of OSM data in QGIS. To query OSM data you ll need to install the "QuickOSM" plugin. See Image 1 below.

The QuickOSM plug-in now available as a new Icon on the QGIS Toolbar. Let's use a "OSM standard" basemap layer (Web - QuickServices menu) for this module and zoom into Himachal at a 1:1500000 scale (Bottom toolbar): 1cm on map is 15km on the ground. See Image 2.

Next, let's run our first OSM query. Click the QuickOSM icon on the QGIS toolbar and let's query all passes from OSM in the current map window. Passes are identified with attribute "mountain_pass" = "yes". Select "Canvas Extent" in the dropdown and click "Run Query" to execute the query. See Image 3.

A new (temporary) vector layer is created in QGIS showing all passes in the current window extent. We can show the name for each pass by right clicking on the layer, choose "Properties", "Labels". Choose "Single Label" and select the "Name" attribute queried from OSM as label. See Image 4 & 5.

You can now zoom into individual passes and verify their exact location on top of an OpenTopoMap base layer in QGIS. See Image 6.

Let's permanently save this new layer by clicking on the memory icon (can be found right to the the layer name mountain_pass_yes). Choose "ESRI shapefile" and provide a filename to save. See Image 7.