Tibet is a region in East Asia covering much of the Tibetan Plateau spanning about 2,500,000 km2 (970,000 sq mi). It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Tamang, Qiang, Sherpa and Lhoba peoples and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han Chinese and Hui people. Tibet is the highest region on Earth, with an average elevation of 4,380 m (14,000 ft). Located in the Himalayas, the highest elevation in Tibet is Mount Everest, Earth's highest mountain, rising 8,848.86 m (29,032 ft) above sea level.
The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) or Xizang Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet or Xizang, is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China in Southwest China. It was overlayed on the traditional Tibetan regions of Ü-Tsang and Kham.
Qinghai, also known Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the largest provinces of China by area, and is ranked fourth largest in area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xining.
While the Tibetan plateau has been inhabited since pre-historic times, most of Tibet's history went unrecorded until the introduction of Tibetan Buddhism around the 6th century. Tibetan texts refer to the kingdom of Zhangzhung as the precursor of later Tibetan kingdoms and the originators of the Bon religion. While mythical accounts of early rulers of the Yarlung Dynasty exist, historical accounts begin with the introduction of Buddhism from India in the 6th century and the appearance of envoys from the unified Tibetan Empire in China in the 7th century. Following the dissolution of the empire and a period of fragmentation in the 9th-10th centuries, a Buddhist revival in the 10th-12th centuries saw the development of three of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
Amdo is one of the three traditional regions of Tibet, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the birthplace of the 14th Dalai Lama. Amdo encompasses a large area from the Machu to the Drichu (Yangtze). Amdo is mostly coterminous with China's present-day Qinghai province, but also includes small portions of Sichuan and Gansu provinces.
The Tibetan independence movement is the political movement advocating for the separation and independence of Tibet from China. It is principally led by the Tibetan diaspora in countries like India and the United States, and by celebrities and Tibetan Buddhists in the United States, India and Europe. The movement is no longer supported by the 14th Dalai Lama, who although having advocated it from 1961 to the late 1970s, proposed a sort of high-level autonomy in a speech in Strasbourg in 1988, and has since then restricted his position to either autonomy for the Tibetan people in the Tibet Autonomous Region within China, or extending the area of the autonomy to include parts of neighboring Chinese provinces inhabited by Tibetans.
Kham is one of the three traditional provinces of Tibet, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas, and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham presently covers a land area distributed between five regions in China, most of it in Tibet Autonomous Region and Sichuan, with smaller portions located within Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan provinces.
Xikang was an illusory province formed by the Republic of China in 1939 on the initiative of prominent Sichuan warlord Liu Wenhui and continued by the early People's Republic of China. It comprised most of the Kham region, where the Khampa, a subgroup of the Tibetan people, live. The then independent Tibet controlled the portion of Kham west of the Upper Yangtze River. The nominal Xikang province also included in the south the Assam Himalayan region that Tibet had recognised as a part of British India by the 1914 McMahon Line agreement. The eastern part of the province was inhabited by a number of different ethnic groups, such as Han Chinese, Yi, Qiang people and Tibetan, then known as Chuanbian (川邊), a special administrative region of the Republic of China. In 1939, it became the new Xikang province with the additional territories belonging to Tibetan and British control added in. After the People's Republic of China invaded and occupied Tibet, the earlier nationalist imagination of Xikang came to fruition.
The Tibetan sovereignty debate refers to two political debates. The first is whether the various territories within the People's Republic of China (PRC) that are claimed as political Tibet should separate and become a new sovereign state. Many of the points in the debate rest on a second debate, about whether Tibet was independent or subordinate to China in certain parts of its recent history.
Zhao Erfeng (1845–1911), courtesy name Jihe, was a Qing Dynasty official and Han Chinese bannerman, who belonged to the Plain Blue Banner. He was an assistant amban in Tibet at Chamdo in Kham. He was appointed in March, 1908 under Lien Yu, the main amban in Lhasa. Formerly Director-General of the Sichuan-Hubei Railway and acting viceroy of Sichuan province, Zhao was the much-maligned Chinese general of the late imperial era who led military campaigns throughout Kham and eventually reaching Lhasa in 1910, earning himself the nickname "the Butcher of Kham" and "Zhao the Butcher".
The history of Tibet from 1950 to the present includes the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, and the Battle of Chamdo. Before then, Tibet had been a "de facto" independent nation. In 1951, Tibetan representatives in Beijing signed the Seventeen-point Agreement under duress, which affirmed China's sovereignty over Tibet while it simultaneously provided for an autonomous administration led by Tibet's spiritual leader, and then-political leader, the 14th Dalai Lama. During the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when Tibetans arose to prevent his possible assassination, the Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet to northern India where he established the Central Tibetan Administration, which rescinded the Seventeen-point Agreement. The majority of Tibet's land mass, including all of U-Tsang and areas of Kham and Amdo, was officially established in 1965 as Tibet Autonomous Region, within China.
The annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China, called the "Peaceful Liberation of Tibet" by the Chinese government, and the "Chinese invasion of Tibet" by the Central Tibetan Administration and the Tibetan diaspora, was the process by which the People's Republic of China (PRC) gained control of Tibet.
Batang County is a county located in western Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, People's Republic of China. Government address: Xiaqiong Town, Batang County, Ganzi, Sichuan 627650. Area code: 0836. The main administrative centre is known as Batang Town or Xiaqiong Town.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Tibet:
The polity of Tibet was a de facto independent state between the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912 and the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China in 1951.
The Battle of Chamdo occurred from 6 to 19 October 1950. It was a military campaign by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to take the Chamdo Region from a de facto independent Tibetan state The campaign resulted in the capture of Chamdo and the annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China.
The Batang uprising is an uprising by the Khampas of Kham against the assertion of authority by Qing China.
Lingtsang was formerly one of the Kham region's five independent kingdoms of Tibet. The realm of Lingstang was incorporated into the People's Republic of China in 1950 following the Battle of Chamdo.
The Ganden Phodrang or Ganden Podrang is a Dalai Lama's bedroom in Drepung Monastery.
Chamdo Region or Qamdo Region was a province-level area of the People's Republic of China comprising most of the western Kham region of traditional Tibet, where the Khampa, a subgroup of the Tibetan people, live. Chamdo split from Xikang Province in 1950 after the Battle of Chamdo. Chamdo was merged into Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965.
