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98-538: Kardze or Garzê ( Tibetan : དཀར་མཛེས , Wylie : dkar mdzes , THL : kar dzé ), called Ganzi in Chinese ( Chinese : 甘孜 ; pinyin : Gānzī ), is a town and county seat in Kardze County , Kardze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in western Sichuan Province, China . Despite Kardze Prefecture being named after the town, the prefecture capital is Kangding , 365 km to the southeast. As of 2010, Kardze

196-515: A cool semi-arid climate ( Köppen : BSk ), bordering on both a monsoon-influenced subtropical highland climate ( Köppen : Cwb ) and a humid continental climate ( Köppen : Dwb ), with frosty winters and mild summers, yet the valley location protects the city from intense cold or heat and strong winds. Monthly possible sunshine ranges from 53 percent in July to 84 percent in November, and

294-600: A winter palace by the Dalai Lama from that time onwards. The Potrang Marpo ( Red Palace ) was added between 1690 and 1694. The name Potala is derived from Mount Potalaka , the mythical abode of the Dalai Lama's divine prototype, the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara . The Jokhang Temple was also greatly expanded around this time. Although some wooden carvings and lintels of the Jokhang Temple date to

392-635: A Princess Bhrikuti of Nepal, and then, two years later, to Princess Wencheng of the Imperial Tang court. Bhrikuti is said to have converted him to Buddhism , which was also the faith attributed to his second wife Wencheng. In 641 he constructed the Jokhang (or Rasa Trülnang Tsulagkhang) and Ramoche Temples in Lhasa in order to house two Buddha statues , the Akshobhya Vajra (depicting

490-700: A civil administration which is referred to by historians as the Lhasa state . The core leadership of this government is also referred to as the Ganden Phodrang , and Lhasa thereafter became both the religious and political capital. In 1645, the reconstruction of the Potala Palace began on Red Hill. In 1648, the Potrang Karpo ( White Palace ) of the Potala was completed, and the Potala was used as

588-409: A five-member delegation headed by Ngapo-Ngawang Jigme traveled to Beijing and reached a consensus on peace talks . In 1959, following a failed uprising , the 14th Dalai Lama and his associates fled Tibet. Lhasa remained the political, economic, cultural and religious center of Tibet. In January 1960, Lhasa City was established. In 1964, the autonomous region and Lhasa city leaders jointly formed

686-444: A high standard. People mainly plant highland barley and winter wheat . The resources of water conservancy, geothermal heating , solar energy and various mines are abundant. There is widespread electricity together with the use of both machinery and traditional methods in the production of such things as textiles , leathers , plastics, matches and embroidery . The production of national handicrafts has made great progress. With

784-690: A hundred people killed, including the Ambans. After suppressing the rebels, Qing Qianlong Emperor reorganized the Tibetan government and set up the governing council called Kashag in Lhasa in 1751. In January 1904, a British expeditionary force invaded and captured Lhasa during the British expedition to Tibet . The expedition's leader, Sir Francis Younghusband negotiated the Convention Between Great Britain and Tibet with

882-510: A number of nobles' houses including Tromzikhang and Jamkhang . There were four large incense burners ( sangkangs ) in the four cardinal directions, with incense burning constantly, to please the gods protecting the Jokhang. Most of the old streets and buildings have been demolished in recent times and replaced with wider streets and new buildings. Some buildings in the Barkhor were damaged in

980-478: A permanent collection of around 1000 artefacts, from examples of Tibetan art to architectural design throughout history such as Tibetan doors and construction beams. It is located in an L-shaped building west of the Potala Palace on the corner of Norbulingkha Road . The museum is organized into three main sections: a main exhibition hall, a folk cultural garden and administrative offices. The Monument to

1078-502: A result, in all modern Tibetan dialects and in particular in the Standard Tibetan of Lhasa , there is a great divergence between current spelling, which still reflects the 9th-century spoken Tibetan, and current pronunciation. This divergence is the basis of an argument in favour of spelling reform , to write Tibetan as it is pronounced ; for example, writing Kagyu instead of Bka'-rgyud . The nomadic Amdo Tibetan and

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1176-403: Is December at 0.3 millimetres (0.01 in) and the wettest month is August, at 133.5 millimetres (5.26 in). Summer is widely regarded the "best" of the year as rains come mostly at night and Lhasa is still sunny during the daytime. The 11th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica published between 1910 and 1911 noted the total population of Lhasa, including the lamas in the city and vicinity

1274-692: Is a comprehensive university with the highest academic level in Tibet Autonomous Region . It is a member of the prestigious Project 211 , and is sponsored under the Double First-Class Construction initiative. Lhasa has been served by rail since 2006, when the Qinghai–Tibet Railway opened for passenger operations. Reaching an elevation of 5,072 metres above sea level, the Qinghai-Tibet railway

1372-863: Is a local form of music and dance in Tibet. While the traditional Dui Huan in Tibet has only one instrument, the Dui Huan in Lhasa has four instruments: in addition to the Zainianqin and the Yangqin , there are the Jinghu , the bamboo flute, and the stringed bells that are specially used for playing the rhythm. Together with the singing, they play, pull, strum and sing. There are 2 universities of Tibet University and Tibet Tibetan Medical University and 3 special colleges of Lhasa Teachers College , Tibet Police College and Tibet Vocational and Technical College in

1470-437: Is also the traditional hub of the Tibetan trading network. For many years, chemical and car making plants operated in the area and this resulted in significant pollution, a factor which has changed in recent years. Copper , lead and zinc are mined nearby and there is ongoing experimentation regarding new methods of mineral mining and geothermal heat extraction. Agriculture and animal husbandry in Lhasa are considered to be of

1568-483: Is based on the Indian vihara design, and was later extended resulting in a blend of Nepalese and Tang dynasty styles. It possesses the statues of Chenresig , Padmasambhava and King Songtsan Gampo and his two foreign brides, Princess Wen Cheng (niece of Emperor Taizong of Tang ) and Princess Bhrikuti of Nepal and other important items. Ramoche Temple is considered the most important temple in Lhasa after

1666-589: Is called uchen script while the hand-written cursive form used in everyday writing is called umê script . This writing system is used across the Himalayas and Tibet . The script is closely linked to a broad ethnic Tibetan identity, spanning across areas in India , Nepal , Bhutan and Tibet. The Tibetan script is of Brahmic origin from the Gupta script and is ancestral to scripts such as Lepcha , Marchen and

1764-758: Is depicted, a town under the name Barantola can be come up with; this town has mostly been suggested to be Lhasa, at other times to refer to modern Bulantai/Boluntay in the western part of the Qinghai province. By the mid 7th century, Songtsen Gampo became the leader of the Tibetan Empire that had risen to power in the Yarlung Tsangpo River (whose lower reaches in India is known as the Brahmaputra River ) Valley. After conquering

1862-666: Is designed as a simple means for inputting Dzongkha text on computers. This keyboard layout was standardized by the Dzongkha Development Commission (DDC) and the Department of Information Technology (DIT) of the Royal Government of Bhutan in 2000. It was updated in 2009 to accommodate additional characters added to the Unicode & ISO 10646 standards since the initial version. Since

1960-633: Is in the middle of the consonant and vowel, it is added as a subscript. On the other hand, when the ར /ra/ comes before the consonant and vowel, it is added as a superscript. ར /ra/ actually changes form when it is above most other consonants, thus རྐ rka. However, an exception to this is the cluster རྙ /ɲa/. Similarly, the consonants ར /ra/, and ཡ /ja/ change form when they are beneath other consonants, thus ཀྲ /ʈ ~ ʈʂa/; ཀྱ /ca/. Besides being written as subscripts and superscripts, some consonants can also be placed in prescript, postscript, or post-postscript positions. For instance,

2058-528: Is simply read as it usually is and has no effect on the pronunciation of the consonant to which it is subjoined, for example ཀ་ཝ་ཟུར་ཀྭ (IPA: /ka.wa.suː.ka/). The vowels used in the alphabet are ཨ /a/, ཨི /i/, ཨུ /u/, ཨེ /e/, and ཨོ /o/. While the vowel /a/ is included in each consonant, the other vowels are indicated by marks; thus ཀ /ka/, ཀི /ki/, ཀུ /ku/, ཀེ /ke/, ཀོ /ko/. The vowels ཨི /i/, ཨེ /e/, and ཨོ /o/ are placed above consonants as diacritics, while

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2156-424: Is situated in the west side of Lhasa, a short distance to the southwest of Potala Palace and with an area of around 36 hectares (89 acres), it is considered to be the largest man made garden in Tibet. It was built from 1755. and served as the traditional summer residence of the successive Dalai Lamas until the 14th's self-imposed exile. Norbulingka was declared a 'National Important Cultural Relic Unit", in 1988 by

2254-560: Is solely for the consonants ད /tʰa/ and ས /sa/. The head ( མགོ in Tibetan, Wylie: mgo ) letter, or superscript, position above a radical is reserved for the consonants ར /ra/, ལ /la/, and ས /sa/. The subscript position under a radical can only be occupied by the consonants ཡ /ja/, ར /ra/, ལ /la/, and ཝ /wa/. In this position they are described as བཏགས (Wylie: btags , IPA: /taʔ/), in Tibetan meaning "hung on/affixed/appended", for example བ་ཡ་བཏགས་བྱ (IPA: /pʰa.ja.taʔ.t͡ʃʰa/), except for ཝ , which

2352-455: Is the administrative division that contains the urban area of Lhasa (i.e. the actual city). The urban area is populated by ethnic Tibetans, Han, Hui and other ethnic groups. The 2000 official census gave a total population of 223,001, of which 171,719 lived in the areas administered by city street offices and city neighborhood committees. 133,603 had urban registrations and 86,395 had rural registrations, based on their place of origin. The census

2450-544: Is the administrative term for the inner urban area or the urban centre within a prefecture, in this case the Prefectural-city of Lhasa. Outside of the urban area much of Chengguan District is mainly mountainous with a near nonexistent rural population. Chengguan District is at the same administrative level as a county. Chengguan District of Lhasa was established on 23 April 1961. It currently has 12 fully urban subdistricts. Owing to its very high elevation, Lhasa has

2548-403: Is the flagship of CITS's installations in Tibet. It accommodates about 1000 guests and visitors to Lhasa. There are over 450 rooms (suites) in the hotel, and all are equipped with air conditioning , mini-bar and other basic facilities. Some of the rooms are decorated in traditional Tibetan style. The hotel was operated by Holiday Inn from 1986 to 1997 and is the subject of a book, The Hotel on

2646-466: Is the highest commercial brewery in the world at 11,975 feet (3,650 m) and accounts for 85 percent of contemporary beer production in Tibet. The brewery, consisting of five-story buildings, cost an estimated US$ 20–25 million, and by 1994, production had reached 30,000 bottles per day, employing some 200 workers by this time. Since 2000, the Carlsberg group has increased its stronghold in

2744-616: Is the world's highest railway by elevation. It connects Lhasa with Xining , the capital of Qinghai Province , some 2,000 km (1,200 mi) away, and ultimately links Lhasa with other major cities with China's extensive railway network. Five trains arrive at and depart from Lhasa railway station each day. Train number Z21 takes 40 hours and 53 minutes from Beijing West , arriving in Lhasa at 13:03 every day. Train Z22 from Lhasa to Beijing West departs at 15:30 and arrives in Beijing at 08:20 on

2842-576: The 1959 Tibetan uprising , the government converted the palace into a museum. The site was used as a meditation retreat by King Songtsen Gampo , who in 637 built the first palace there in order to greet his bride Princess Wen Cheng of the Tang dynasty of China. Lozang Gyatso , the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, started the construction of the Potala Palace in 1645 after one of his spiritual advisers, Konchog Chophel (d. 1646), pointed out that

2940-574: The 7th Dalai Lama ; a small part of the Shugtri Lingka, and the Lukhang . Dormitory blocks, offices and army barracks are built over the rest. The Guāndì miào (關帝廟) or Gesar Lhakhang temple was erected by the Amban in 1792 atop Mount Bamare 3 kilometres (2 miles) south of the Potala to celebrate the defeat of an invading Gurkha army. The main gate to the city of Lhasa used to run through

3038-537: The Chengguan District of Lhasa City , is the inner urban district of Lhasa City , Tibet Autonomous Region , Southwestern China . Lhasa is the second most populous urban area on the Tibetan Plateau after Xining and, at an altitude of 3,656 metres (11,990 ft), Lhasa is one of the highest cities in the world . The city has been the religious and administrative capital of Tibet since

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3136-592: The Gregorian calendar . The Barkhor is an area of narrow streets and a public square in the old part of the city located around Jokhang Temple and was the most popular devotional circumambulation for pilgrims and locals. The walk was about one kilometre (0.6 miles) long and encircled the entire Jokhang , the former seat of the State Oracle in Lhasa called the Muru Nyingba Monastery , and

3234-539: The Jokang , the Norbulingka Summer Palace and surrounding large monasteries as well the spectacular Himalayan landscape together with the many wild plants and animals native to the high altitudes of Central Asia . Tourism to Tibet dropped sharply following the crackdown on protests in 2008, but as early as 2009, the industry was recovering. Chinese authorities plan an ambitious growth of tourism in

3332-898: The Latin script . Multiple Romanization and transliteration systems have been created in recent years, but do not fully represent the true phonetic sound. While the Wylie transliteration system is widely used to Romanize Standard Tibetan , others include the Library of Congress system and the IPA-based transliteration (Jacques 2012). Below is a table with Tibetan letters and different Romanization and transliteration system for each letter, listed below systems are: Wylie transliteration (W), Tibetan pinyin (TP), Dzongkha phonetic (DP), ALA-LC Romanization (A) and THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription (THL). The first version of Microsoft Windows to support

3430-534: The Lhasa River , a tributary of the Brahmaputra River , with land that rises to the north and south of the river. It is 28 kilometres (17 mi) from east to west and 31 kilometres (19 mi) from north to south. Chengguan District is bordered by Doilungdêqên District to the west, Dagzê County to the east and Lhünzhub County to the north. Gonggar County of Lhoka (Shannan) Prefecture lies to

3528-527: The Pabonka Hermitage . This occurred c.  620 , towards the beginning of the king's reign. There were 21 Sutra texts held by the King which were afterward translated. In the first half of the 7th century, the Tibetan script was used for the codification of these sacred Buddhist texts, for written civil laws, and for a Tibetan Constitution. A contemporary academic suggests that the script

3626-478: The Tibet University , produces traditional Tibetan rugs that are exported worldwide. It is a modern factory, the largest manufacturer of rugs throughout Tibet, employing some 300 workers. Traditionally Tibetan women were the weavers, and men the spinners, but both work on the rugs today. The Lhasa Brewery Company was established in 1988 on the northern outskirts of Lhasa, south of Sera Monastery and

3724-496: The 11th century in what is considered to have always been a monolithically Buddhist culture. Two Tibetan Muslim communities have lived in Lhasa with distinct homes, food and clothing, language, education, trade and traditional herbal medicine. By the 15th century, the city of Lhasa had risen to prominence following the founding of three large Gelugpa monasteries by Je Tsongkhapa and his disciples. The three monasteries are Ganden , Sera and Drepung which were built as part of

3822-549: The 2008 unrest. The Jokhang is located on Barkhor Square in the old town section of Lhasa. For most Tibetans it is the most sacred and important temple in Tibet. It is in some regards pan-sectarian, but is presently controlled by the Gelug school. Along with the Potala Palace , it is probably the most popular tourist attraction in Lhasa. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Historic Ensemble of

3920-573: The 7th century, the oldest of Lhasa's extant buildings, such as within the Potala Palace, the Jokhang and some of the monasteries and properties in the Old Quarter date to this second flowering in Lhasa's history. By the end of the 17th century, Lhasa's Barkhor area formed a bustling market for foreign goods. The Jesuit missionary, Ippolito Desideri reported in 1716 that the city had a cosmopolitan community of Mongol, Chinese, Muscovite, Armenian, Kashmiri, Nepalese and Northern Indian traders. Tibet

4018-549: The Buddha at the age of eight) and the Jowo Sakyamuni (depicting Buddha at the age of twelve), respectively brought to his court by the princesses. Lhasa suffered extensive damage under the reign of Langdarma in the 9th century, when the sacred sites were destroyed and desecrated and the empire fragmented. A Tibetan tradition mentions that after Songtsen Gampo's death in 649 C.E., Chinese troops captured Lhasa and burnt

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4116-695: The Chinese had a crowded burial-ground at Lhasa, tended carefully after their manner and that the Nepalese supplied mechanics and metal-workers at that time. In the first half of the 20th century, several Western explorers made celebrated journeys to the city, including William Montgomery McGovern , Francis Younghusband , Alexandra David-Néel , and Heinrich Harrer . Lhasa was the centre of Tibetan Buddhism as nearly half of its population were monks , Though this figure may include monks from surrounding monasteries who travelled to Lhasa for various celebrations and were not ordinarily resident there. The majority of

4214-559: The Chinese market and has become increasingly influential in the country with investment and expertise. Carlsberg invested in the Lhasa Brewery in recent years and has drastically improved the brewing facility and working conditions, renovating and expanding the building to what now covers 62,240 square metres (15.3 acres). Lhasa has many sites of historic interest, including the Potala Palace , Jokhang Temple , Sera Monastery and Norbulingka . The Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple and

4312-406: The Chinese wife of Trisong Detsen 's father, Me Agtsom . Chokpori , meaning 'Iron Mountain', is a sacred hill , located south of the Potala. It is considered to be one of the four holy mountains of central Tibet and along with two other hills in Lhasa represent the "Three Protectors of Tibet.", Chokpori ( Vajrapani ), Pongwari ( Manjushri ), and Marpori ( Chenresig or Avalokiteshvara ). It

4410-466: The Indian subcontinent state that the classical orthography should not be altered even when used for lay purposes. This became an obstacle for many modern Tibetic languages wishing to modernize or to introduce a written tradition. Amdo Tibetan was one of a few examples where Buddhist practitioners initiated a spelling reform. A spelling reform of the Ladakhi language was controversial in part because it

4508-418: The Jokhang Temple. Situated in the northwest of the city, it is east of the Potala and north of the Jokhang, covering a total area of 4,000 square meters (almost one acre). The temple was gutted and partially destroyed in the 1960s and its famous bronze statue disappeared. In 1983 the lower part of it was said to have been found in a Lhasa rubbish tip, and the upper half in Beijing. They have now been joined and

4606-594: The Lhasa City Municipal Construction Command, led from the country's brother provinces and cities to mobilize the construction team, has built the Lhasa City YuTuo Road, KangAng East Road, NiangJe South Road, JinZhu East Road, DuoSen South Road and Beijing West Road. Lhasa local officials paved more than 100,000 square meters of asphalt. The new city center of Lhasa is three times larger than the old city center, and

4704-525: The Lhasa city. Tibet University ( Tibetan : བོད་ལྗོངས་སློབ་གྲྭ་ཆེན་མོ་) is the main university of Tibet Autonomous Region . Its campus is located in Chengguan District, Lhasa, east of the city-centre. A forerunner was created in 1952 and the university was officially established in 1985, funded by the Chinese government . About 8000 students are enrolled at the university. Tibet University

4802-534: The Norbulingka are UNESCO world heritage sites. However, many important sites were damaged or destroyed mostly, but not solely, during China's Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. Many have been restored since the 1980s. The Potala Palace , named after Mount Potala, the abode of Chenresig or Avalokitesvara , was the chief residence of the Dalai Lama . After the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India during

4900-733: The Peaceful Liberation of Tibet was unveiled in the Potala Square in May 2002 to celebrate the 51st anniversary of the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet , and the work in the development of the autonomous region since then. The 37-metre-high concrete monument is shaped as an abstract Mount Everest and its name is engraved with the calligraphy of former CCP general secretary and PRC president Jiang Zemin , while an inscription describes

4998-412: The Potala Palace," and a spiritual centre of Lhasa. This temple has remained a key center of Buddhist pilgrimage for centuries. The circumambulation route is known as the "kora" in Tibetan and is marked by four large stone incense burners placed at the corners of the temple complex. The Jokhang temple is a four-story construction, with roofs covered with gilded bronze tiles. The architectural style

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5096-458: The Red Palace. Chinese and Tibetan scholars have noted that the event is mentioned neither in the Chinese annals nor in the Tibetan manuscripts of Dunhuang . Lǐ suggested that this tradition may derive from an interpolation . Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa believes that "those histories reporting the arrival of Chinese troops are not correct." From the fall of the monarchy in the 9th century to

5194-515: The Roof of the World . Another hotel of note is the historical Banak Shöl Hotel , located at 8 Beijing Road in the city. It is known for its distinctive wooden verandas . The Nam-tso Restaurant is located in the vicinity of the hotel and is frequented especially by Chinese tourists visiting Lhasa. Lhasa contains several businesses of note. Lhasa Carpet Factory , a factory south of Yanhe Dong Lu near

5292-655: The Sixth Population Census in 2010, the population of Tibetans is 429,104, accounting for 76.70% of the total population of Lhasa. The second most populous ethnic group is the Han Chinese, with a population of 121,065, accounting for 21.64% of Lhasa's total population. These two ethnic groups account for the vast majority of Lhasa's total population, while other ethnic minorities account for only about 1.66% of Lhasa's total population. Lhasa has an elevation of about 3,600 m (11,800 ft) and lies in

5390-707: The State council. In 2001, the Central Committee of the Chinese Government in its 4th Tibet Session resolved to restore the complex to its original glory. The Sho Dun Festival (popularly known as the "yogurt festival") is an annual festival held at Norbulingka during the seventh Tibetan month in the first seven days of the Full Moon period, which corresponds to dates in July/August according to

5488-732: The Tibetan keyboard layout is MS Windows Vista . The layout has been available in Linux since September 2007. In Ubuntu 12.04, one can install Tibetan language support through Dash / Language Support / Install/Remove Languages, the input method can be turned on from Dash / Keyboard Layout, adding Tibetan keyboard layout. The layout applies the similar layout as in Microsoft Windows. Mac OS -X introduced Tibetan Unicode support with OS-X version 10.5 and later, now with three different keyboard layouts available: Tibetan-Wylie, Tibetan QWERTY and Tibetan-Otani. The Dzongkha keyboard layout scheme

5586-410: The Tibetan script is that the consonants can be written either as radicals or they can be written in other forms, such as subscript and superscript forming consonant clusters . To understand how this works, one can look at the radical ཀ /ka/ and see what happens when it becomes ཀྲ /kra/ or རྐ /rka/ (pronounced /ka/). In both cases, the symbol for ཀ /ka/ is used, but when the ར /ra/

5684-401: The Tibetan script it is /a/. The letter ཨ is also the base for dependent vowel marks. Although some Tibetan dialects are tonal , the language had no tone at the time of the script's invention, and there are no dedicated symbols for tone. However, since tones developed from segmental features, they can usually be correctly predicted by the archaic spelling of Tibetan words. One aspect of

5782-426: The accession of the 5th Dalai Lama , the centre of political power in the Tibetan region was not situated in Lhasa. However, the importance of Lhasa as a religious site became increasingly significant as the centuries progressed. It was known as the centre of Tibet where Padmasambhava magically pinned down the earth demoness and built the foundation of the Jokhang Temple over her heart. Islam has been present since

5880-401: The arrangement of keys essentially follows the usual order of the Dzongkha and Tibetan alphabet, the layout can be quickly learned by anyone familiar with this alphabet. Subjoined (combining) consonants are entered using the Shift key. The Dzongkha (dz) keyboard layout is included in Microsoft Windows, Android, and most distributions of Linux as part of XFree86 . Tibetan was originally one of

5978-407: The basic Tibetan alphabet to represent different sounds. In addition to the use of supplementary graphemes, the rules for constructing consonant clusters are amended, allowing any character to occupy the superscript or subscript position, negating the need for the prescript and postscript positions. Romanization and transliteration of the Tibetan script is the representation of the Tibetan script in

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6076-415: The c. 620 date of development of the original Tibetan script. Three orthographic standardisations were developed. The most important, an official orthography aimed to facilitate the translation of Buddhist scriptures emerged during the early 9th century. Standard orthography has not been altered since then, while the spoken language has changed by, for example, losing complex consonant clusters . As

6174-413: The centre of the Tibetan Plateau with the surrounding mountains rising to 5,500 m (18,000 ft). The air only contains 68 percent of the oxygen compared to sea level. The Lhasa River , also Kyi River or Kyi Chu, a tributary of the Yarlung Zangbo River (Brahmaputra River), runs through the southern part of the city. This river, known to local Tibetans as the "merry blue waves", flows through

6272-677: The city receives nearly 3,000 hours of sunlight annually. It is thus sometimes called the "sunlit city" by Tibetans. The coldest month is January with an average temperature of 0.6 °C (33.1 °F) and the warmest month is June and July with a daily average of 17.5 °C (63.5 °F), though nights have generally been warmer in July. The annual mean temperature is 8.8 °C (47.8 °F), with extreme temperatures ranging from −16.5 to 30.8 °C (2 to 87 °F) on 17 January 1968 and 24 June 2019 respectively. Lhasa has an annual precipitation of 458 millimetres (18.0 in) with rain falling mainly in July, August and September. The driest month

6370-418: The consonants ག /kʰa/, ད /tʰa/, བ /pʰa/, མ /ma/ and འ /a/ can be used in the prescript position to the left of other radicals, while the position after a radical (the postscript position), can be held by the ten consonants ག /kʰa/, ན /na/, བ /pʰa/, ད /tʰa/, མ /ma/, འ /a/, ར /ra/, ང /ŋa/, ས /sa/, and ལ /la/. The third position, the post-postscript position

6468-444: The district, where bilingual or wholly Chinese teaching was common in the schools. Competitive industry together with feature economy play key roles in the development of Lhasa. With the view to maintaining a balance between population growth and the environment, tourism and service industries are emphasised as growth engines for the future. Many of Lhasa's rural residents practice traditional agriculture and animal husbandry . Lhasa

6566-399: The growth of tourism and service sectors, the sunset industries which cause serious pollution are expected to fade in the hope of building a healthy ecological system. Environmental problems such as soil erosion , acidification , and loss of vegetation are being addressed. The tourism industry now brings significant business to the region, building on the attractiveness of the Potala Palace,

6664-445: The kingdom of Zhangzhung in the west, he moved the capital from the Chingwa Taktsé Castle in Chongye County ( pinyin : Qióngjié Xiàn), southwest of Yarlung , to Rasa (Lhasa) where in 637 he raised the first structures on the site of what is now the Potala Palace on Mount Marpori. In CE 639 and 641, Songtsen Gampo, who by this time had conquered the whole Tibetan region, is said to have contracted two alliance marriages, firstly to

6762-428: The large Pargo Kaling chorten and contained holy relics of the Buddha Mindukpa. In 2000 the urbanised area covered 53 square kilometres (20 sq mi), with a population of around 170,000. Official statistics of the metropolitan area report that 70 percent are Tibetan, 24.3 are Han, and the remaining 2.7 Hui, though outside observers suspect that non-Tibetans account for some 50–70 percent. According to

6860-463: The mid-17th century. It contains many culturally significant Tibetan Buddhist sites such as the Potala Palace , Jokhang Temple and Norbulingka Palaces. Lhasa literally translates to "place of gods" ( ལྷ lha , god; ས sa , place) in the Tibetan language . Chengguan literally translates to "urban gateway" ( Chinese : 城关 ; pinyin : Chéngguān ) in the Chinese language. Ancient Tibetan documents and inscriptions demonstrate that

6958-402: The multilingual ʼPhags-pa script , and is also closely related to Meitei . According to Tibetan historiography, the Tibetan script was developed during the reign of King Songtsen Gampo by his minister Thonmi Sambhota , who was sent to India with 16 other students to study Buddhism along with Sanskrit and written languages. They developed the Tibetan script from the Gupta script while at

7056-464: The oldest known example of Tibetan writing. The pillar contains dedications to a famous Tibetan general and gives an account of his services to the king including campaigns against China which culminated in the brief capture of the Chinese capital Chang'an (modern Xi'an ) in 763 CE during which the Tibetans temporarily installed as Emperor a relative of Princess Jincheng Gongzhu (Kim-sheng Kong co),

7154-510: The other hand, puts the population of Lhasa in 1952, at "some 25,000–30,000—about 45,000–50,000 if the population of the great monasteries on its outskirts be included." The total population of Lhasa Prefecture-level City is 521,500 (including known migrant population but excluding military garrisons). Of this, 257,400 are in the urban area (including a migrant population of 100,700), while 264,100 are outside. Nearly half of Lhasa Prefecture-level City's population lives in Chengguan District, which

7252-475: The place was called Rasa ( ར་ས ), which meant "goat's place", as it was a herding site. The name was changed to Lhasa, which means "place of gods", upon its establishment as the capital of Tibet , and construction of the Jokhang temple was completed, which housed a holy statue of the Buddha. Lhasa is first recorded as the name, referring to the area's temple of Jowo, in a treaty drawn up between China and Tibet in 822 C.E. In some old European maps, where Tibet

7350-561: The population of the city has increased by more than 20,000 people. In September 1965, the Tibet Autonomous Region was established, and Lhasa became the capital of the region. Of the 22 parks ( lingka s) which surrounded the city of Lhasa, most of them over half a mile in length, where the people of Lhasa were accustomed to picnic, only three survive today: the Norbulingka , Dalai Lama's Summer Palace, constructed by

7448-513: The pre-1950 Chinese population of Lhasa were merchants and officials. In the Lubu section of Lhasa, the inhabitants were descendants of Chinese vegetable farmers, some of whom married Tibetan wives. They came to Lhasa in the 1840s–1860s after a Chinese official was appointed to the position of Amban . According to one writer, the population of the city was about 10,000, with some 10,000 monks at Drepung and Sera monasteries in 1959. Hugh Richardson, on

7546-498: The puritanical Buddhist revival in Tibet. The scholarly achievements and political know-how of this Gelugpa Lineage eventually pushed Lhasa once more to centre stage. The 5th Dalai Lama , Lobsang Gyatso (1617–1682), unified Tibet and moved the centre of his administration to Lhasa in 1642 with the help of Güshi Khan of the Khoshut . With Güshi Khan as a largely uninvolved overlord, the 5th Dalai Lama and his intimates established

7644-475: The region aiming at 10 million visitors by 2020; these visitors are expected to be domestic. With renovation around historic sites, such as the Potala Palace, UNESCO has expressed "concerns about the deterioration of Lhasa's traditional cityscape." Lhasa contains several hotels. Lhasa Hotel is a 4-star hotel located northeast of Norbulingka in the western suburbs of the city. Completed in September 1985, it

7742-646: The remaining Tibetan officials after the Dalai Lama had fled to the countryside. The treaty was subsequently repudiated and was succeeded by a 1906 Anglo-Chinese treaty . All Qing troops left Lhasa after the Xinhai Lhasa turmoil in 1912. On November 2, 1949, the local Tibetan government sent a letter to Mao Zedong (then Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party ) expressing its desire for talks. Tsepon Shargyalpa and Tsejang Khenpo Tubten Gyalpo were sent as representatives, but no consensus

7840-702: The scripts in the first version of the Unicode Standard in 1991, in the Unicode block U+1000–U+104F. However, in 1993, in version 1.1, it was removed (the code points it took up would later be used for the Burmese script in version 3.0). The Tibetan script was re-added in July, 1996 with the release of version 2.0. The Unicode block for Tibetan is U+0F00–U+0FFF. It includes letters, digits and various punctuation marks and special symbols used in religious texts: Lhasa Lhasa , officially

7938-502: The site was ideal as a seat of government, situated as it is between Drepung and Sera monasteries and the old city of Lhasa. The palace underwent restoration works between 1989 and 1994, costing RMB55 million (US$ 6.875 million) and was inscribed to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1994. The Lhasa Zhol Pillar , below the Potala, dates as far back as circa 764 CE. and is inscribed with what may be

8036-555: The snow-covered peaks and gullies of the Nyainqêntanglha mountains, extending 315 km (196 mi), and emptying into the Yarlung Zangbo River at Qüxü , forms an area of great scenic beauty. The marshlands, mostly uninhabited, are to the north. Ingress and egress roads run east and west, while to the north, the road infrastructure is less developed. Chengguan District is located on the middle reaches of

8134-500: The socioeconomic development experienced in Tibet in the past fifty years. There are four mosques in and around Lhasa. The earliest mosque, called Khache Lingka , dates to 1650 and is located west of the city, and consists of two compounds. The Lhasa Great Mosque is the most prominent and built by the early 1700s. The Dokdé Mosque, north of Lhasa, has an adjacent cemetery and is dated to 1716. The fourth mosque, commonly known as "Small Mosque" (but also Barkor or Rapsel Alley Mosque),

8232-438: The south. Chengguan District has an elevation of 3,650 metres (11,980 ft) and covers 525 square kilometres (203 sq mi). The urban built-up area covers 60 square kilometres (23 sq mi).The average annual temperature of 8 °C (46 °F). Annual precipitation is about 300 millimetres (12 in) to 500 millimetres (20 in), mostly falling between July and September. The term "Chengguan District"

8330-481: The statue is housed in the Ramoche Temple, which was partially restored in 1986, and still showed severe damage in 1993. Following the major restoration of 1986, the main building in the temple now has three stories. The Tibet Museum in Lhasa is the official museum of the Tibet Autonomous Region and was inaugurated on 5 October 1999. It is the first large, modern museum in the Tibet Autonomous Region and has

8428-466: The third day, taking 40 hours, 50 minutes. Trains also arrive in Lhasa from Chengdu , Chongqing , Lanzhou , Xining, Guangzhou , Shanghai and other cities. To counter the problem of altitude differences giving passengers altitude sickness , extra oxygen is pumped in through the ventilation system and available directly on each berth with close open control by a flap for convenience of passenger, and personal oxygen masks are available on request. Within

8526-512: The vowel ཨུ /u/ is placed underneath consonants. Old Tibetan included a reversed form of the mark for /i/, the gigu 'verso', of uncertain meaning. There is no distinction between long and short vowels in written Tibetan, except in loanwords , especially transcribed from the Sanskrit . The Tibetan alphabet, when used to write other languages such as Balti , Chinese and Sanskrit , often has additional and/or modified graphemes taken from

8624-582: The western dialects of the Ladakhi language , as well as the Balti language , come very close to the Old Tibetan spellings. Despite that, the grammar of these dialectical varieties has considerably changed. To write the modern varieties according to the orthography and grammar of Classical Tibetan would be similar to writing Italian according to Latin orthography, or to writing Hindi according to Sanskrit orthogrophy. However, modern Buddhist practitioners in

8722-517: Was 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) long enclosing Old Lhasa, the Potala and Chokpori hill. In former times it was crowded with men and women covering its length in prostrations , beggars and pilgrims approaching the city for the first time. The road passed through willow-shaded parks where the Tibetans used to picnic in summer and watch open air operas on festival days. New Lhasa has obliterated most of Lingkhor, but one stretch still remains west of Chokpori. The Norbulingka palace and surrounding park

8820-483: Was about 30,000, A census in 1854 made the figure 42,000, but it is known to have greatly decreased afterwards. Britannica noted that within Lhasa, there were about a total of 1,500 resident Tibetan laymen and about 5,500 Tibetan women. The permanent population also included Chinese families (about 2,000). The city's residents included traders from Nepal and Ladakh (about 800), and a few from Bhutan, Mongolia and other places. The Britannica noted with interest that

8918-411: Was built in the early 1900s. There are some night spots that feature cabaret acts in which performers sing in Chinese , Tibetan , and English . Dancers wear traditional Tibetan costume with long flowing cloth extending from their arms. There are a number of small bars that feature live music, although they typically have limited drink menus and cater mostly to foreign tourists. Duihuan (སྟོད་གཞས་)

9016-526: Was exporting musk, gold, medicinal plants, furs and yak tails to far-flung markets, in exchange for sugar, tea, saffron, Persian turquoise, European amber and Mediterranean coral. The Qing dynasty army entered Lhasa in 1720, and the Qing government sent resident commissioners, called the Ambans , to Lhasa. On 11 November 1750, the murder of the regent by the Ambans triggered a riot in the city that left more than

9114-467: Was first initiated by Christian missionaries. In the Tibetan script, the syllables are written from left to right. Syllables are separated by a tsek (་); since many Tibetan words are monosyllabic, this mark often functions almost as a space. Spaces are not used to divide words. The Tibetan alphabet has thirty basic letters, sometimes known as "radicals", for consonants. As in other Indic scripts , each consonant letter assumes an inherent vowel ; in

9212-627: Was home to 16,920 inhabitants. Kardze is an ethnic Tibetan township and is located in the historical Tibetan region of Kham . It contains the 15th century Kandze Monastery , home to over 500 Gelugpa monks. Kardze lies in the large Kardze valley at 3390 metres above sea level and is surrounded by rocky terrain and mountains. The Yalong River 's tributary Rongcha River passes through the town from north to south. Tibetan script The Tibetan script has also been used for some non-Tibetic languages in close cultural contact with Tibet, such as Thakali , Nepali and Old Turkic . The printed form

9310-428: Was instead developed in the second half of the 11th century. New research and writings also suggest that there were one or more Tibetan scripts in use prior to the introduction of the script by Songtsen Gampo and Thonmi Sambhota . The incomplete Dunhuang manuscripts are their key evidence for their hypothesis, while the few discovered and recorded Old Tibetan Annals manuscripts date from 650 and therefore post-date

9408-690: Was reached. On October 7, 1950, the Chinese People's Liberation Army launched the Battle of Chamdo . After the battle, the PLA ceased military operations, released all Tibetan prisoners, and expressed its hope for a settlement through peace talks. At the invitation of the Central Government, the Dalai Lama and a Tibetan government delegation traveled to Beijing for peace talks, and in April 1951,

9506-404: Was taken in November, when many of the ethnic Han workers in seasonal industries such as construction would have been away from Tibet, and did not count the military. A 2011 book estimated that up to two-thirds of the city's residents are non-Tibetan, although the government states that Chengguan District as a whole is still 63% ethnic Tibetan. As of 2014 , half of Tibet's Han population resided in

9604-551: Was the site of the most famous medical school Tibet, known as the Mentsikhang , which was founded in 1413. It was conceived of by Lobsang Gyatso , the "Great" 5th Dalai Lama, and completed by the Regent Sangye Gyatso (Sangs-rgyas rgya-mtsho) shortly before 1697. Lingkhor is a sacred path, most commonly used to name the outer pilgrim road in Lhasa matching its inner twin, Barkhor. The Lingkhor in Lhasa

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