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View Area Map | View Tibet Map
Known to the West as the ‘roof of the world’ and called the ‘land of snows’ in its own literature, Tibet lies in the very heart of Asia. Bordered by India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar (Burma) to the south, and Chinese provinces to the north, east, and west, the cultural region of Tibet covers an area larger than the European Union.
Tibet is a complex region of variegated landscapes and diverse cultures. It spans an extraordinary range of geographical features, including Mt. Everest and the Himalayas, the world’s highest mountain range, and the sources for many of Asia’s most important rivers.
Tibet’s topography ranges from the desert-like high plateau of its central and western regions (averaging an altitude of 12,500 feet) and the barren nomad lands of the northern plains, to the rolling pastures and wildflower meadows of the north east; from the narrow canyons and thick evergreen timberland of the east to the monsoon-fed bamboo groves and tropical forests of the south.
Tibet was traditionally divided into three regions: U-tsang in center and west, Amdo in the northeast, and Kham in the east and southeast. What is often meant by ‘Tibet’ is currently the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) of China, which incorporates much of central and western Tibet and is the location of the region’s capital Lhasa. The eastern cultural regions of Tibet have been absorbed into other Chinese provinces: Amdo into Qinghai and Gansu Provinces, and Kham into Sichuan and Yunan.
View Area Map | View Tibet Map
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