Gyantse

Gyantse County lies in the fertile Nyang River valley of the Tibet Autonomous Region, about 250 km southwest of Lhasa and administered under the prefecture-level city of Shigatse, at an elevation of nearly 4,000 metres. Historically one of Tibet's three largest towns alongside Lhasa and Shigatse, it built its wealth on the wool and textile trade along caravan routes toward Sikkim and India, and its economy today rests on highland barley farming, handicrafts such as Gyantse carpets, and a tourism sector built around its extraordinary religious monuments. The town is dominated by Pelkor Chode Monastery and its Kumbum, the largest chorten in Tibet, a nine-tiered stupa built in the 15th century that depicts more than ten thousand Buddhist images across dozens of chapels, while the hilltop Gyantse Dzong fortress, built in 1390, famously withstood a British military expedition in 1904. There is no university in Gyantse, and students travel to Shigatse or Lhasa, home of Tibet University, to pursue higher education. For visitors, Gyantse offers one of the best-preserved traditional Tibetan townscapes anywhere on the plateau, combining monastic art, a historic fortress and a working farming valley.