Shigatse
People's Republic of China · Asia
About Shigatse
Shigatse, officially known as Xigazê (Tibetan: གཞིས་ཀ་རྩེ་, Wylie: gzhis ka rtse, ZWPY: xigazê) or Rikaze, is a prefecture-level city of the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Its area of jurisdiction, with an area of 182,000 km2 (70,271 sq mi), corresponds to the historical Ü-Tsang region of Tibet, and is most notable for containing the Chinese half of Mount Everest.
The administrative center of the prefecture-level city is the Samzhubzê District. It is roughly equivalent to the historical Shigatse urban center, the second-largest city in Tibet, located about 280 km (170 mi) southwest of Lhasa and home to the Tashilhunpo Monastery, traditionally the seat of the Panchen Lama.
Some of the towns in the prefecture are: Gyantse (Gyantse County), Tingri (Tingri County), and Nyalam (Nyalam County).
On 11 July 2014 Shigatse Prefecture was upgraded into a prefecture-level city (the same status as Lhasa).
In the eighth century, the Tibetan Empire of King Trisong Detsen invited the Indian monk Padmasambhava into Tibet to build the Samye monastery, passing through the place of Rikaze where the practice of preaching...
Overview adapted from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Photography via Wikimedia Commons.