diff --git a/xrspatial/geotiff/_reader.py b/xrspatial/geotiff/_reader.py
index f94c2874..e76ee1c4 100644
--- a/xrspatial/geotiff/_reader.py
+++ b/xrspatial/geotiff/_reader.py
@@ -680,10 +680,26 @@ def _request(self, headers: dict | None = None):
         )
 
     def read_range(self, start: int, length: int) -> bytes:
+        # Match the ``b''``-for-non-positive-length convention used by
+        # other source implementations (e.g. ``_BytesIOSource``).
+        # Without this guard, ``Range: bytes=<start>-<start-1>`` goes on
+        # the wire, which is an invalid range and triggers a 416 from
+        # well-behaved servers (or worse, an arbitrarily large 200 body
+        # from misbehaving ones).
+        if length <= 0:
+            return b''
         end = start + length - 1
         headers = {'Range': f'bytes={start}-{end}'}
         if self._pool is not None:
-            return self._request(headers=headers).data
+            resp = self._request(headers=headers)
+            data = resp.data
+            return self._validate_range_response(
+                status=resp.status,
+                content_range=resp.headers.get('Content-Range'),
+                data=data,
+                start=start,
+                length=length,
+            )
         # Fallback: stdlib. urlopen's ``timeout`` is a single value, so
         # use the more conservative read timeout; the connect timeout
         # isn't separately controllable on stdlib urllib. The opener
@@ -691,7 +707,118 @@ def read_range(self, start: int, length: int) -> bytes:
         # validated and capped at ``_HTTP_MAX_REDIRECTS``.
         req = urllib.request.Request(self._url, headers=headers)
         with _get_stdlib_opener().open(req, timeout=self._read_timeout) as resp:
-            return resp.read()
+            data = resp.read()
+            # stdlib raises HTTPError for 4xx/5xx automatically; we still
+            # need to catch the "server ignored Range and returned 200
+            # with the whole object" case, plus any short body.
+            return self._validate_range_response(
+                status=getattr(resp, 'status', None) or resp.getcode(),
+                content_range=resp.headers.get('Content-Range'),
+                data=data,
+                start=start,
+                length=length,
+            )
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def _validate_range_response(*, status, content_range, data,
+                                 start: int, length: int) -> bytes:
+        """Reject HTTP responses that do not satisfy the Range request.
+
+        Without this, three things can go wrong silently (issue #1735):
+
+        - the server returns a 4xx/5xx body (urllib3 by default does not
+          raise on non-2xx, so the bytes would be handed to the caller);
+        - the server ignores ``Range`` for a non-zero start and returns
+          the whole object as a 200 with no ``Content-Range``, handing
+          the codec wrong-offset bytes;
+        - the body is shorter or longer than what the server advertised
+          via ``Content-Range``, which surfaces later inside a decoder
+          as an opaque error far from the real cause.
+
+        A short response near EOF is legitimate: a fixed-size header
+        prefetch (e.g. ``read_range(0, 16384)``) will hit the end of a
+        smaller file and the server returns ``Content-Range: bytes
+        0-(size-1)/size``. The validator accepts that as long as the
+        Content-Range starts at the requested offset and the body
+        length matches what Content-Range advertises.
+
+        Returns the validated bytes, sliced to at most ``length`` bytes
+        in the "server ignored Range and returned the whole object as
+        200" case (start == 0, no Content-Range). Other branches return
+        ``data`` unchanged.
+        """
+        if status is None or status not in (200, 206):
+            raise OSError(
+                f"HTTP range request returned status {status}; expected "
+                f"206 Partial Content (or 200 with full body)."
+            )
+        if content_range is None:
+            # No Content-Range. A 200 with no Content-Range is only safe
+            # when the caller asked for the beginning of the object; for
+            # any other ``start`` the bytes returned do not correspond
+            # to the requested offset.
+            if status == 206:
+                raise OSError(
+                    "HTTP 206 response missing Content-Range header."
+                )
+            if start != 0:
+                raise OSError(
+                    f"HTTP server returned status 200 with no "
+                    f"Content-Range for a range request starting at "
+                    f"byte {start}; refusing to use the body as a "
+                    f"range fetch."
+                )
+            if len(data) < min(length, 1):
+                # Empty body but caller wanted bytes.
+                raise OSError("HTTP 200 response body is empty.")
+            # Server ignored Range and returned the full object as 200.
+            # The implicit contract is "at most ``length`` bytes"; slice
+            # so a 16 KiB prefetch against a 2 GiB object doesn't drag
+            # the whole thing into memory.
+            if len(data) > length:
+                return data[:length]
+            return data
+        # Parse ``bytes <start>-<end>/<total-or-*>``. Reject anything
+        # that does not start at the requested offset; allow ``end`` to
+        # be lower than requested when EOF was hit.
+        try:
+            unit, _, spec = content_range.partition(' ')
+            rng, _, _total = spec.partition('/')
+            cr_start_s, _, cr_end_s = rng.partition('-')
+            cr_start = int(cr_start_s)
+            cr_end = int(cr_end_s)
+        except ValueError:
+            raise OSError(
+                f"HTTP Content-Range header {content_range!r} could "
+                f"not be parsed."
+            ) from None
+        if unit != 'bytes':
+            raise OSError(
+                f"HTTP Content-Range unit {unit!r} is not 'bytes'."
+            )
+        if cr_start != start:
+            raise OSError(
+                f"HTTP Content-Range {content_range!r} starts at byte "
+                f"{cr_start}, but the request started at byte {start}."
+            )
+        if cr_end < cr_start:
+            raise OSError(
+                f"HTTP Content-Range {content_range!r} has end "
+                f"({cr_end}) below start ({cr_start})."
+            )
+        if cr_end - cr_start + 1 > length:
+            raise OSError(
+                f"HTTP Content-Range {content_range!r} advertises more "
+                f"bytes than were requested (length={length})."
+            )
+        expected_len = cr_end - cr_start + 1
+        if len(data) != expected_len:
+            raise OSError(
+                f"HTTP range body length {len(data)} does not match "
+                f"the {expected_len} bytes advertised by "
+                f"Content-Range {content_range!r}."
+            )
+        return data
 
     def read_ranges(
         self,
diff --git a/xrspatial/geotiff/tests/test_http_range_validation_1735.py b/xrspatial/geotiff/tests/test_http_range_validation_1735.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..a74f47fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/xrspatial/geotiff/tests/test_http_range_validation_1735.py
@@ -0,0 +1,217 @@
+"""Regression tests for issue #1735.
+
+``_HTTPSource.read_range`` previously returned the response body
+without checking the status code, the ``Content-Range`` header, or the
+returned byte length. Three failure modes slipped through silently:
+
+- a 200 (Range ignored) or a 4xx/5xx body was handed to the caller as
+  if it were the requested range,
+- a ``Content-Range`` header pointing at a different byte range was
+  trusted as the requested one,
+- a truncated response was passed to a downstream codec where the
+  decode error appeared far from the real cause.
+
+These tests stand up tiny loopback HTTP servers that misbehave in each
+of those ways and assert that ``read_range`` raises a clear ``OSError``.
+"""
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import http.server
+import socketserver
+import threading
+
+import pytest
+
+from xrspatial.geotiff._reader import _HTTPSource
+
+
+class _BaseHandler(http.server.BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
+    payload: bytes = b'0' * 64
+
+    def log_message(self, *_args, **_kwargs):
+        pass
+
+
+def _serve(handler_cls):
+    httpd = socketserver.TCPServer(('127.0.0.1', 0), handler_cls)
+    port = httpd.server_address[1]
+    thread = threading.Thread(target=httpd.serve_forever, daemon=True)
+    thread.start()
+    return f'http://127.0.0.1:{port}/x.bin', httpd, thread
+
+
+def _stop(httpd):
+    httpd.shutdown()
+    httpd.server_close()
+
+
+@pytest.fixture(autouse=True)
+def _allow_loopback(monkeypatch):
+    monkeypatch.setenv('XRSPATIAL_GEOTIFF_ALLOW_PRIVATE_HOSTS', '1')
+
+
+def test_range_request_ignored_for_nonzero_start_raises():
+    """Server ignores ``Range`` for a non-zero start and returns full
+    200 -> OSError. (A 200 with start=0 is harmless because the body
+    offsets line up with what the caller wanted.)"""
+
+    class _Handler(_BaseHandler):
+        def do_GET(self):  # noqa: N802
+            # Ignore Range header; return the full object as 200.
+            self.send_response(200)
+            self.send_header('Content-Length', str(len(self.payload)))
+            self.end_headers()
+            self.wfile.write(self.payload)
+
+    url, httpd, _ = _serve(_Handler)
+    try:
+        src = _HTTPSource(url)
+        with pytest.raises(OSError, match="Content-Range|range fetch"):
+            src.read_range(8, 16)
+    finally:
+        _stop(httpd)
+
+
+def test_range_request_wrong_content_range_raises():
+    """Server returns 206 but the Content-Range header points at the
+    wrong bytes -> OSError."""
+
+    class _Handler(_BaseHandler):
+        def do_GET(self):  # noqa: N802
+            # Pretend we sent bytes 4-19/64 regardless of what was asked.
+            self.send_response(206)
+            self.send_header('Content-Length', '16')
+            self.send_header('Content-Range', 'bytes 4-19/64')
+            self.end_headers()
+            self.wfile.write(self.payload[4:20])
+
+    url, httpd, _ = _serve(_Handler)
+    try:
+        src = _HTTPSource(url)
+        # Caller asks for 0-15; server says 4-19.
+        with pytest.raises(OSError, match="Content-Range"):
+            src.read_range(0, 16)
+    finally:
+        _stop(httpd)
+
+
+def test_range_request_short_body_raises():
+    """Server returns 206 with a body shorter than the requested
+    length -> OSError."""
+
+    class _Handler(_BaseHandler):
+        def do_GET(self):  # noqa: N802
+            self.send_response(206)
+            self.send_header('Content-Length', '4')
+            self.send_header('Content-Range', 'bytes 0-15/64')
+            self.end_headers()
+            # Send only 4 bytes despite advertising a 16-byte range.
+            self.wfile.write(self.payload[:4])
+
+    url, httpd, _ = _serve(_Handler)
+    try:
+        src = _HTTPSource(url)
+        with pytest.raises(OSError, match="length"):
+            src.read_range(0, 16)
+    finally:
+        _stop(httpd)
+
+
+def test_range_request_well_formed_succeeds():
+    """A correctly-formed 206 response is accepted as-is."""
+
+    class _Handler(_BaseHandler):
+        def do_GET(self):  # noqa: N802
+            rng = self.headers.get('Range', '')
+            spec = rng[len('bytes='):]
+            s, _, e = spec.partition('-')
+            start = int(s)
+            end = int(e)
+            chunk = self.payload[start:end + 1]
+            self.send_response(206)
+            self.send_header('Content-Length', str(len(chunk)))
+            self.send_header(
+                'Content-Range',
+                f'bytes {start}-{start + len(chunk) - 1}/'
+                f'{len(self.payload)}',
+            )
+            self.end_headers()
+            self.wfile.write(chunk)
+
+    url, httpd, _ = _serve(_Handler)
+    try:
+        src = _HTTPSource(url)
+        out = src.read_range(8, 16)
+        assert out == _BaseHandler.payload[8:24]
+        assert len(out) == 16
+    finally:
+        _stop(httpd)
+
+
+def test_read_range_zero_length_returns_empty_without_request():
+    """``read_range(start, 0)`` (and negative ``length``) must short-
+    circuit to ``b''`` before any HTTP request goes on the wire.
+
+    Without the guard, ``Range: bytes=<start>-<start-1>`` is sent, which
+    is an invalid range and either trips a 416 from a well-behaved
+    server or pulls down arbitrarily large bytes from a misbehaving one.
+    Other source implementations (e.g. ``_BytesIOSource``) already
+    follow the ``b''``-on-non-positive-length convention; this test
+    pins that contract for ``_HTTPSource`` too.
+    """
+    hit_count = {'n': 0}
+
+    class _Handler(_BaseHandler):
+        def do_GET(self):  # noqa: N802
+            # If we ever land here, the guard failed. Record the hit so
+            # the assertion below points at the right cause.
+            hit_count['n'] += 1
+            self.send_response(200)
+            self.send_header('Content-Length', str(len(self.payload)))
+            self.end_headers()
+            self.wfile.write(self.payload)
+
+    url, httpd, _ = _serve(_Handler)
+    try:
+        src = _HTTPSource(url)
+        assert src.read_range(10, 0) == b''
+        assert src.read_range(0, 0) == b''
+        assert src.read_range(10, -5) == b''
+        assert hit_count['n'] == 0, (
+            "read_range(length<=0) should not issue an HTTP request"
+        )
+    finally:
+        _stop(httpd)
+
+
+def test_range_ignored_200_with_full_body_is_sliced_to_length():
+    """Server ignores ``Range`` for ``start=0`` and returns the full
+    object as a 200 with no ``Content-Range`` -> response is sliced to
+    the requested length.
+
+    The implicit contract of ``read_range`` is "at most ``length``
+    bytes". A 16 KiB header prefetch against a 2 GiB object must not
+    drag the whole thing into memory when the server misbehaves.
+    """
+
+    class _Handler(_BaseHandler):
+        # Payload larger than the requested length so we can verify the
+        # slice happens.
+        payload = b'\xab' * 4096
+
+        def do_GET(self):  # noqa: N802
+            # Ignore Range entirely; return the full object as 200.
+            self.send_response(200)
+            self.send_header('Content-Length', str(len(self.payload)))
+            self.end_headers()
+            self.wfile.write(self.payload)
+
+    url, httpd, _ = _serve(_Handler)
+    try:
+        src = _HTTPSource(url)
+        # start=0 -> validator should slice rather than raise.
+        out = src.read_range(0, 64)
+        assert len(out) == 64
+        assert out == _Handler.payload[:64]
+    finally:
+        _stop(httpd)