Amdo is one of the three main regions of Tibet found in the northeast corner of the Tibetan Plateau. Amdo is home to approximately 1/4 of the total Tibetan population. Parts of Amdo lie in 3 Chinese provinces: northern and eastern Qinghai, southwest Gansu and northern Sichuan. If you think of Tibet as rolling grasslands filled with yaks and nomads, the Amdo region is what you are thinking of. Amdo covers an area of over 645,000 square kilometres.
Most of Amdo has not been under the direct rule of the Dalai Lama’s since the middle of the 18th century. From the mid-18th century until the mid-20th century, much of Amdo was ruled by local kings and chiefs or by warlords. Much of Amdo was incorporated into the newly formed Qinghai province མཚོ་སྔོན་ in 1928, though the Tibetan government in Lhasa still laid claimed to the region. It wasn’t until the 1950’s before China really had control over the Amdo region. Many of Tibet’s most famous people are from Amdo including the current 14th Dalai Lama, the late 10th Panchen Lama and the famous Buddhist reformer Tsongkhapa.
Amdo is one of the three main regions of Tibet found in the northeast corner of the Tibetan Plateau. Amdo is home to approximately 1/4 of the total Tibetan population. Parts of Amdo lie in 3 Chinese provinces: northern and eastern Qinghai, southwest Gansu and northern Sichuan. If you think of Tibet as rolling grasslands filled with yaks and nomads, the Amdo region is what you are thinking of. Amd…
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