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This article is about the administrative region of the People\'s Republic of China. For the historical/cultural region, see Tibet. For other uses, see Tibet (disambiguation).
| བོད་རང་སྐྱོང་ལྗོངས་ (Tibetan) Bod-rang-skyong-ljongs (Wylie) 西藏自治区 (Chinese) Xīzàng Zìzhìqū (Pinyin) Tibet Autonomous Region | |
| Abbreviations: 藏 (pinyin: Zàng) | |
| |
| Origin of name | See Origin of name | Administration type | Autonomous region |
| Capital (and largest city) | Lhasa |
| CPC Ctte Secretary | Zhang Qingli |
| Chairman | Qiangba Puncog |
| Area | 1,228,400 km² (2nd) |
| Population (2004) - Density | 2,740,000 (31st) 2.2/km² (31st) |
| GDP (2006) - per capita | CNY 29.01 billion (31st) CNY 10,322 (26th) |
| HDI (2005) | 0.586 (medium) (31st) |
| Major nationalities | 92.8% Tibetan |
| Prefecture-level | 7 divisions |
| County-level | 73 divisions |
| Township-level† | 692 divisions |
| ISO 3166-2 | CN-54 |
| Official website http://www.xizang.gov.cn/ | |
| Source for population and GDP data: 《中国统计年鉴—2005》 China Statistical Yearbook 2005 《2000年人口普查中国民族人口资料》 Tabulation on nationalities of 2000 population census of China | |
| This article contains Indic text. Without rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes or other symbols instead of Indic characters; or irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. |
| This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters. |
The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) (Tibetan: བོད་རང་སྐྱོང་ལྗོངས་; Wylie: Bod-rang-skyong-ljongs; simplified Chinese: 西藏自治区; traditional Chinese: 西藏自治區; pinyin: Xīzàng Zìzhìqū), is a province-level autonomous region of the People\'s Republic of China (PRC).
Within the PRC, the TAR is identified with Tibet, the TAR includes about half of historic Tibet, including the traditional provinces of Ü-Tsang and Kham (western half). Its borders coincide roughly with the actual zone of control of the government of Tibet before 1959.
Unlike other autonomous regions, the vast majority of Tibetans are of the local ethnicity. As a result, there is debate surrounding the extent of actual autonomy in the TAR. The opinion of the PRC is that the TAR has ample autonomy, as guaranteed under Articles 111-122 of the Constitution of the People\'s Republic of China as well as the Law on Regional Ethnic Autonomy of the People\'s Republic of China. However, many human rights organizations around the world accuse the Chinese government of persecuting and oppressing the local population [1]
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For the history of the area before 1959, see History of Tibet.
Before 1959, the present extent of the TAR (comprising Ü-Tsang and western Kham) was governed by the government of Tibet headed by the Dalai Lama. The Government of Tibet in Exile characterizes the area as an independent and sovereign nation . Other parts of historic Tibet (eastern Kham and Amdo) were not under the administration of the Tibetan government during the twentieth century; today they are distributed among the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan.
Following Soviet practice, there is a convention that the governor of the TAR is an ethnic Tibetan from the TAR, while the general secretary of the local Communist Party committee is an outsider, usually Han Chinese. Notable general secretaries of the TAR Party committee include Hu Jintao, who served in the 1980s.
In 1950, the Chinese Army claimed the Tibetan area of Chamdo, crushing minimal resistance. In 1951, the Tibetan representatives, under PLA military pressure, signed a seventeen-point agreement with the PRC\'s Central People\'s Government affirming China\'s sovereignty over Tibet. The agreement was ratified in Lhasa a few months later.Gyatso, Tenzin, Dalai Lama XIV, interview, 25 July 1981. Goldstein, Melvyn C., A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951, University of California Press, 1989, pp812-813 . Government forces clashed with CIA-supported ethnic dissidents in 1959 during the celebration of the Tibetan New Year, after which the 14th Dalai Lama, with CIA help, went into political exile in India. After 1959, the CIA trained Tibetan guerrillas and provided funds for the fight against China. However, the effort stopped when Richard Nixon decided to seek rapprochement with China in the early 1970s. Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, in The CIA\'s Secret War in Tibet Morrison, James, The CIA\'s Secret War in Tibet, 1998., reveal how the CIA encouraged Tibet\'s revolt against China - and eventually came to control its fledgling resistance movement. The New York Times reported on October 2, 1998 that the Dalai Lama\'s administration acknowledged that it received $1.7 million a year in the 1960s from the CIA, but denied reports that the Tibetan leader benefited personally from an annual subsidy of $180,000. The money allocated for the resistance movement was spent on training volunteers and paying for guerrilla operations against the Chinese, the Tibetan government-in-exile said.
The TAR is located on the Tibetan Plateau, the highest region on Earth. In northern Tibet elevations reach an average of over 4,572 metres. Most of the Himalaya mountain range lies within Xizang; Mount Everest lies on Xizang\'s border with Nepal.
Xinjiang, Qinghai and Sichuan lie to the north and east of the TAR; Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh to the west; and Yunnan, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh to the south.
Tibet Autonomous Region is divided into one prefecture-level city and six prefectures:
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These in turn are subdivided into a total of seventy-one counties, one district (Chengguan District, Lhasa) and one county-level city (Xigazê).
The TAR has the lowest population density among China\'s province-level administrative regions, mostly due to its mountainous and harsh geographical features.
As of 2000, 92.8% of the population are ethnic Tibetans, who mainly adhere to Tibetan Buddhism and Bön. Han Chinese, who are recent immigrants from other parts of the People\'s Republic of China, comprise 6.1% of the population [2].
Smaller tribal groups such as the Monpa and Lhoba, who follow a combination of Tibetan Buddhism and spirit worship, are found mainly in the southeastern parts of the region.
The Tibetans traditionally depended upon agriculture for survival. Since the 1980s, however, other jobs such as taxi-driving and hotel retail work have become available in the wake of Chinese economic reform. In 2006, Tibet\'s nominal GDP topped 29 billion yuan (US$3.8 billion), more than double the 11.78 billion yuan (US$1.47 billion) in 2000. In the past five years, Tibet\'s annual GDP growth has averaged 12%.
While traditional agricultural work and animal husbandry continue to lead the area\'s economy, in 2005 the tertiary sector contributed more than half its GDP growth, the first time it has surpassed the area\'s primary industry [3] [4]. The re-opening of the Nathu La pass (on southern Tibet\'s border with India) should facilitate Sino-Indian border trade and boost Tibet\'s economy [5].
In 2005, the Chinese state news vehicle reported that the per capita disposable incomes of urban and rural residents in Tibet averaged 8,411 yuan (US$1,051) and 2,075 yuan (US$259) respectively. These figures were an increase of 30.4% and 55.9% over those of 2000 [6].
The China Western Development policy has recently been adopted by central government to boost economic development in western China, including the TAR.
Tourists were first permitted to visit the TAR in the 1980s. While the main attraction is the Potala Palace in Lhasa, there are many other popular tourist destinations including Jokhang Temple, Namtso Lake, and Tashilhunpo Monastery.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
| Tibet Autonomous Region | ||
|---|---|---|
| History • Politcs • Economy | ||
| Prefecture-level city | Lhasa |
|
| Prefectures | Naqgu • Ngari • Nyingchi • Qamdo • Shannan • Xigazê | |
| See also: List of Tibet Autonomous Region County-level divisions | ||
| Tibetan autonomous areas in the People\'s Republic of China | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tibet Autonomous Region | Lhasa · Nagqu · Qamdo · Shannan · Xigazê · Ngari · Nyingchi |  |
| Gansu Province | Gannan · Tianzhu | |
| Qinghai Province | Haibei · Hainan · Haixi (Mongols and Tibetans) · Huangnan · Golog · Yushu | |
| Sichuan Province | Garzê · Ngawa (Tibetans and Qiang) · Muli | |
| Yunnan Province | Dêqên | |
| See also Political divisions of China | ||
| Province-level divisions of the People\'s Republic of China | ||
|---|---|---|
| Provinces | Anhui · Fujian · Gansu · Guangdong · Guizhou · Hainan · Hebei · Heilongjiang · Henan · Hubei · Hunan · Jiangsu · Jiangxi · Jilin · Liaoning · Qinghai · Shaanxi · Shandong · Shanxi · Sichuan · Taiwan (claim) · Yunnan · Zhejiang | |
| Autonomous regions | Guangxi · Inner Mongolia · Ningxia · Tibet · Xinjiang | |
| Municipalities | Beijing · Chongqing · Shanghai · Tianjin | |
| Special administrative regions | Hong Kong · Macau | |
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