60 Fun Facts About Tibet

Tibet is the highest region on Earth, with an average elevation of roughly how much?

That is about 14,000 feet, and the whole plateau is often nicknamed the Roof of the World.

Which mountain, on Tibet's border with Nepal, is the region's highest point?

It stands 8,848.86 metres above sea level according to the latest survey.

What is Tibet's own name for itself?

Some scholars trace it to the Sanskrit Bhautta; Chinese authorities have used the pinyin Xizang in English documents since 2023.

Which city has been Tibet's religious and administrative capital since the mid-17th century?

At 3,656 metres it is one of the highest cities in the world, and its name means 'place of gods'.

Before it became the capital, Lhasa was called Rasa, meaning what?

Goats were used to move earth during construction of the great temple, and the name changed to 'place of gods' afterwards.

Who was the 33rd king of Tibet and founder of the Tibetan Empire in the 7th century?

He is the first of Tibet's 'Three Dharma Kings' and traditionally introduced Buddhism to the country.

Princess Wencheng, who wed the empire's founder in 640, was a niece of which dynasty's emperor?

His other famous foreign wife was a Nepalese princess credited with a great role in establishing Buddhism in Tibet.

In late 763, Tibetan troops occupied which Chinese capital for fifteen days?

China had been weakened by the An Lushan rebellion; the city is modern Xi'an.

The 821-823 peace treaty between Tibet and China was inscribed on a pillar outside which Lhasa temple?

An earlier 783 border treaty is commemorated by the Shol Potala Pillar.

Which king's assassination in 842 marks the beginning of the Tibetan Empire's dissolution?

He had murdered his brother Tritsuk Detsen in 838 and persecuted Nyingma monasteries before being killed himself.

Tibetan tradition credits which 7th-century minister with creating the Tibetan script?

He is said to have adapted it from India's Gupta script around 620, though the earliest chronicles never mention him.

The word 'Dalai' in Dalai Lama comes from Mongolian and means what?

Altan Khan gave the title to Sonam Gyatso in 1578; 'Gyatso' is the Tibetan word for ocean.

Sonam Gyatso, the first to receive the title in 1578, is counted as which Dalai Lama?

His two predecessors in the lineage were awarded the title posthumously.

The Dalai Lamas belong to which school of Tibetan Buddhism, also known as the Yellow Hats?

Its founder Je Tsongkhapa's disciples established the great monasteries of Ganden, Drepung and Sera near Lhasa.

Which Dalai Lama, 'the Great', unified central Tibet and ordered the Potala Palace built?

He won a prolonged civil war against the Kagyu and Jonang sects and the Tsangpa prince.

The Potala Palace is named after Mount Potalaka, the mythical abode of which bodhisattva?

The Dalai Lamas are held to be his incarnations; the palace has 13 storeys, over 1,000 rooms and 200,000 statues.

On which hill in Lhasa does the Potala Palace stand?

The name means Red Mountain, and the site once held an earlier palace attributed to the empire's founder.

Lhasa's Jokhang temple was built around 640 to house a Buddha statue brought by which queen?

Her Jowo Mikyo Dorje now sits in the Ramoche temple, while Wencheng's Jowo Shakyamuni remains in the great temple.

What is the Barkhor in Lhasa?

The walk around the temple takes about 20 minutes and is marked by four stone incense burners.

The 14th Dalai Lama was born in 1935 in the village of Taktser in which traditional Tibetan region?

Born Lhamo Thondup to a farming family, he was recognised in 1939 and enthroned in Lhasa in February 1940.

What is the 14th Dalai Lama's religious name?

Tibetans also call him Kundun ('The Presence') and Yizhin Norbu ('The Wish-Fulfilling Gem').

The 14th Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in which year?

He retired as political head of the exile government in 2011 to make way for elected leadership.

The Dalai Lama's government-in-exile is based in which Indian hill town?

It was first set up in Mussoorie in April 1959 and moved the following year.

The 1959 Lhasa uprising began on which date, now observed by exiles as Tibetan Uprising Day?

Protests were fuelled by fears that the Chinese planned to arrest the Dalai Lama at a dance performance in the military headquarters.

Which US agency gave Tibetan fighters training, Nepal camps and aerial supply drops around 1959?

Armed resistance had begun in the eastern regions in 1956 after socialist reforms were imposed there.

What is the 1951 document under which China annexed Central Tibet called?

It followed the Battle of Chamdo, and the Dalai Lama's government was abolished after the failed 1959 uprising.

Which British officer led the 1904 expedition into Tibet and negotiated the resulting convention?

Launched amid Great Game fears of Russian influence, it began as a border dispute mission and became an invasion.

The province-level region China created to replace the old Tibet Area was established in which year?

It covers over 1.2 million square kilometres, about half of cultural Tibet, with roughly three people per square kilometre.

The Panchen Lama, second in spiritual authority to the Dalai Lama, traditionally heads which monastery?

It stands in Tibet's second city, and each Panchen Lama is held to be an incarnation of the buddha Amitābha.

Which mountain in western Tibet is sacred to Buddhists, Hindus, Jains and followers of Bön alike?

No recorded ascent has ever been made and climbing is prohibited; pilgrims circumambulate it instead.

Hindus regard the sacred peak Tibetans call Khang Rinpoche as the home of which god?

Two of Asia's greatest rivers, the Indus among them, rise near the mountain.

The Yarlung Tsangpo, the highest major river in the world, becomes which river once it reaches Assam?

Where it leaves the plateau it carves the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon, the world's deepest.

Because so many great Asian rivers rise there, Tibet has been called what?

The Yangtze, Yellow, Indus, Mekong, Ganges and Salween all originate on the plateau.

The Tibetan Plateau is sometimes called the 'Third Pole' because of what?

At 2.5 million square kilometres it is the world's largest and highest plateau.

The lake Namtso, at 4,718 metres, is the largest lake in which administrative area?

It is not, however, the largest lake on the wider plateau, where Qinghai Lake takes that title.

What is tsampa, the Tibetan staple?

Because the flour is pre-roasted it needs no cooking, and it is usually kneaded with butter tea into a dough.

Traditional Tibetan butter tea is made with tea, butter, water, tsampa and which seasoning?

Tibetans may drink up to 60 small cups a day, and the best is brewed from pu-erh leaves boiled for half a day.

Linnaeus's name for Tibet's shaggy domestic bovine, Bos grunniens, means what?

The wild yak is now usually called Bos mutus, the 'mute ox', and in Tibetan 'yak' refers only to the male.

Tibetans do not use the Western term 'sky burial'; what do they call the practice?

On the plateau the ground is too hard to dig graves and fuel too scarce for cremation, so exposure was more practical.

The Qinghai–Tibet railway crosses the world's highest rail pass at Tanggula, at roughly what altitude?

More than 960 km of the line sits above 4,000 metres, and the Golmud–Lhasa section opened in 2006 once permafrost problems were solved.

Losar, the Tibetan New Year, falls in which months?

The Tibetan year count starts from 127 BCE, when the first king Nyatri Tsenpo is said to have founded the Yarlung dynasty.

Which mantra is most commonly inscribed on Tibetan prayer wheels?

Spinning the wheel is held to earn the same merit as reciting the prayer aloud; wind-driven wheels date back to the fourth century.

Tibet's exile flag, adopted by the 13th Dalai Lama in 1916, is nicknamed after which mythical creatures on it?

The two beasts hold the flaming three jewels of Buddhism, and the six red rays represent Tibet's original ancestral tribes.

Which Austrian mountaineer wrote Seven Years in Tibet after befriending the young Dalai Lama?

His SS membership was revealed by Stern magazine in 1997, the year Brad Pitt played him on film.

Linguists place the language of Tibet in which language family?

Within it, Tibetan most closely resembles Burmese, and its script is shared with Ladakhi and Dzongkha.

Who wrote the first Tibetan-English dictionary and grammar in 1834?

The Hungarian scholar's work opened Tibetan studies to the West.

Which indigenous Tibetan religion has its traditional home in the Zhang Zhung culture?

Zhang Zhung dominated western Tibet until the first Tibetan emperor annexed it in the 7th century.

Which Mongol prince gained temporal power in Tibet in the 1240s and sponsored Sakya Pandita?

Sakya Pandita's nephew Phagpa later became Imperial Preceptor to Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan dynasty.

Which of Tibet's three traditional provinces covers the central and western TAR, including Lhasa?

The other two lie to the northeast, largely in today's Qinghai, and to the southeast.

What is the second-largest city in Tibet, west of Lhasa?

In 1774 the Scot George Bogle travelled there to sound out trade prospects for the East India Company.

Tibet's staple foods are roasted barley, butter tea and the meat of which animal?

The shaggy bovine also supplies the butter for the tea and hair for tents and ropes.

Since 2023, Chinese authorities have replaced 'Tibet' in official English documents with which pinyin name?

The Central Tibetan Administration in exile has opposed the change; the English word Tibet dates to 1827.

Who toppled the Sakya between 1346 and 1354 and founded the Phagmodrupa dynasty?

The next 80 years saw the Gelug school founded and the great Ganden, Drepung and Sera monasteries built near Lhasa.

What were the resident commissioners the Qing sent to Lhasa from the 18th century called?

In 1750 the Ambans were killed in a Lhasa riot, and Qing troops crushed the rebels the following year.

Which invaders did the Qianlong Emperor's army push out of Tibet in 1792?

The campaign led to the Twenty-Nine Regulations for Better Government in Tibet and new garrisons on the Nepal border.

Which general led a Sikh army from Ladakh into western Tibet in 1841, starting the Sino-Sikh War?

The war ended with the Treaty of Chushul between the Chinese and Sikh empires.

Which reformist Chinese leader's 1980 visit to Tibet opened a period of liberalisation?

Reforms stalled after monks at Drepung and Sera began independence protests late in the decade.

Harvesting which fungus provides about 40% of rural cash income in the Tibet Autonomous Region?

The 'caterpillar fungus' adds at least 1.8 billion yuan a year to the region's GDP.

Which Portuguese Jesuit reached the kingdom of Guge in western Tibet in 1624 and built a church?

By 1627 there were about a hundred local converts, and a Jesuit outpost followed at Shigatse.

Tibet's small urban Muslim communities, the Kachee, trace their name to which region?

After 1959 India granted all Tibetan Muslims citizenship on the strength of those Kashmiri roots.