Tibet Autonomous Region
The Tibet Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet, or referred to in Chinese as Xizang, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It was established in 1965 to replace the Tibet Area, a former administrative division of the Republic of China.
The current borders of the Tibet Autonomous Region were generally established in the 18th century and include about half of cultural Tibet, which was at times independent and at times either under the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty or Qing dynasty rule. The TAR spans more than and is the second-largest province-level division of China by area. Due to its harsh and rugged terrain, it has a total population of only 3.6 million people or approximately.
Names
Tibet Autonomous Region is often shortened to Tibet in English or as Xizang in Hanyu Pinyin which has been the Chinese transliteration of Ü-Tsang since the Manchu-led Qing dynasty. The English word Thibet dates back to 1827 and may have been derived from older terms in other languages. The official use of Xizang in Chinese records dates back to 1724 when the Kangxi Emperor of Qing dynasty wrote an edict for the Imperial Stele Inscriptions of the Pacification of Tibet in languages such as Han, Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan.History
In the 6th century, the 39'th Tibetan king, Namri Songtsen, began to annex neighboring tribes by force, he was later assassinated by a coup, and his son Songtsen Gampo succeeded him and quelled rebellions in various regions. Songtsen Gampo inherited his father's will and successively conquered and annexed other kingdoms such as "Songbo" in the Yushu area of Qinghai, Sumpa in the west, "Kangguo" in Qianduo, "Fuguo " in Ganzi, "Fanlu " in Litang, and Tuyuhun in Qinghai. Songtsen Gampo also led a large army to attack Zhangzhung in 642. It took him three years to conquer Zhangzhung and sent Khyungpo Pungse Sutse as the governor of Zhangzhung. Zhangzhung then became a vassal state of the Tibetan Empire.Yarlung kings founded the Tibetan Empire in 618. By the end of the 8th century, the empire reached its greatest extent. After a civil war, the empire broke up in 842. The royal lineage fragmented and ruled over small kingdoms such as Guge and Maryul. The Mongols conquered Tibet in 1244 and later ruled it under the Yuan Dynasty but granted the region a degree of political autonomy. The Sakya lama Drogön Chögyal Phagpa became a religious teacher to Kublai Khan in the 1250s and was made the head of the Tibetan region administration.
From 1354 to 1642, Central Tibet was ruled by a succession of dynasties from Nêdong, Shigatse and Lhasa. In 1642, the Ganden Phodrang court of the 5th Dalai Lama was established by Güshi Khan of the Khoshut Khanate, who was enthroned as King of Tibet. The Khoshuts ruled until 1717, when they were overthrown by the Dzungar Khanate. Despite politically charged historical debate concerning the nature of Sino-Tibetan relations, some historians posit that Tibet under the Ganden Phodrang was an independent state, albeit under various foreign suzerainties for much of this period, including by the Ming dynasty. The Dzungar forces were in turn expelled by the 1720 expedition to Tibet during the Dzungar–Qing Wars. This began a period of Manchu-led Qing rule over Tibet.
From the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912 until 1950, Tibet was de facto independent although still claimed by the successor Republic of China. The Republican regime, preoccupied with warlordism, civil war and Japanese invasion, was not able to exert authority in Central Tibet. Other regions of ethno-cultural Tibet in eastern Kham and Amdo had been under de jure administration of the Chinese dynastic government since the mid-18th century; they form parts of the provinces of Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan.
In 1950, following the proclamation of the People's Republic of China the year before, the People's Liberation Army defeated the Tibetan army near the city of Chamdo. In 1951, Tibetan representatives signed the Seventeen Point Agreement with the Central People's Government affirming its sovereignty over Tibet and the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China. The 14th Dalai Lama ratified the agreement in October 1951. Despite the agreement, relations between the Tibetan and Chinese governments deteriorated, and on March 10, 1959, Tibetans in Lhasa launched an uprising, which ultimately failed, but the date continues to be marked as Tibetan Uprising Day each year by Tibetan Exiles. The 14th Dalai Lama fled to India and renounced the Seventeen Point Agreement, saying he had approved it under duress. During the 1950s and 1960s, CIA-trained Tibetan agents were parachuted into Tibet to fight the PLA, but almost all of them were captured and killed. The establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965 made Tibet a provincial-level division of China.
Geography
The Tibet Autonomous Region is located on the Tibetan Plateau, the highest region on Earth. In northern Tibet elevations reach an average of over. Mount Everest is located on Tibet's border with Nepal.China's provincial-level areas of Xinjiang, Qinghai and Sichuan lie to the north, northeast and east, respectively, of the Tibet AR. There is also a short border with Yunnan Province to the southeast. The countries to the south and southwest are Nepal, Myanmar, India and Bhutan. China claims Arunachal Pradesh administered by India as part of the Tibet Autonomous Region. It also claims some areas adjoining the Chumbi Valley that are recognised as Bhutan's territory, and some areas of eastern Ladakh claimed by India. India and China agreed to respect the Line of Actual Control in a bilateral agreement signed on September 7, 1993.
Physically, the Tibet AR may be divided into two parts: the lakes region in the west and northwest and the river region, which spreads out on three sides of the former on the east, south and west. Both regions receive limited amounts of rainfall as they lie in the rain shadow of the Himalayas; however, the region names are useful in contrasting their hydrological structures, and also in contrasting their different cultural uses: nomadic in the lake region and agricultural in the river region. On the south the Tibet AR is bounded by the Himalayas, and on the north by a broad mountain system. The system at no point narrows to a single range; generally there are three or four across its breadth. As a whole the system forms the watershed between rivers flowing to the Indian Ocean — the Indus, Brahmaputra and Salween and its tributaries — and the streams flowing into the undrained salt lakes to the north.
The lake region extends from the Pangong Tso Lake in Ladakh, Lake Rakshastal, Yamdrok Lake and Lake Manasarovar near the source of the Indus River, to the sources of the Salween, the Mekong and the Yangtze. Other lakes include Dagze Co, Namtso, and Pagsum Co. The lake region is a wind-swept Alpine grassland. This region is called the Chang Tang or 'Northern Plateau' by the people of Tibet. It is broad and covers an area about equal to that of France. Due to its great distance from the ocean it is extremely arid and possesses no river outlet. The mountain ranges are spread out, rounded, disconnected, and separated by relatively flat valleys.
The Tibet AR is dotted over with large and small lakes, generally salt or alkaline, and intersected by streams. Due to the presence of discontinuous permafrost over the Chang Tang, the soil is boggy and covered with tussocks of grass, thus resembling the Siberian tundra. Salt and fresh-water lakes are intermingled. The lakes are generally without outlet, or have only a small effluent. The deposits consist of soda, potash, borax and common salt. The lake region is noted for a vast number of hot springs, which are widely distributed between the Himalayas and 34° N, but are most numerous to the west of Tengri Nor. So intense is the cold in this part of Tibet that these springs are sometimes represented by columns of ice, the nearly boiling water having frozen in the act of ejection.
The river region is characterized by fertile mountain valleys and includes the Yarlung Tsangpo River and its major tributary, the Nyang River, the Salween, the Yangtze, the Mekong, and the Yellow River. The Yarlung Tsangpo Canyon, formed by a horseshoe bend in the river where it flows around Namcha Barwa, is the deepest and possibly longest canyon in the world. Among the mountains there are many narrow valleys. The valleys of Lhasa, Shigatse, Gyantse and the Brahmaputra are free from permafrost, covered with good soil and groves of trees, well irrigated, and richly cultivated.
The South Tibet Valley is formed by the Yarlung Tsangpo River during its middle reaches, where it travels from west to east. The valley is approximately long and wide. The valley descends from above sea level to. The mountains on either side of the valley are usually around high. Lakes here include Lake Paiku and Lake Puma Yumco.