Potala Palace, Tibet
Tuesday, 12th August 2008 by Alex Turnbull
This is the huge Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, which used to be the winter residence of the Dalai Lama (the spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people), until the current 14th Dalai Lama fled in 1959 following a Chinese invasion and the failed uprising that followed. The building contains the sacred gold stupas of the previous eight Dalai Lamas.
The 117 metre-tall palace is built at an altitude of 3,700 m, and measures 400 metres by 350 metres across. The thirteen storeys of building contain over 1,000 rooms, 10,000 shrines and about 200,000 statues. At the south base of the rock is a large space enclosed by walls and gates, where a series of shallow staircases leads to the summit of the rock.
Since the Chinese Government formalised their occupation in 1959, most of historical Tibet has been known as the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. To this day, human rights organisations around the world continue to accuse the Chinese government of persecuting and oppressing the local population, while the Chinese government maintains that Tibet has "ample autonomy".
Today the Potala Palace has been converted into a museum, and the Dalai Lama resides in India, from where he is head of the Tibetan Government in Exile.
The Potala Palace Wikipedia page has more historical information, and there's a wide range of excellent photographs available at Flickr. For more information on the occupation of Tibet, visit the Free Tibet website.
Thanks to Faine Greenwood, Krystal and Steve.
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4111
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i think theres a typo in this post
the building actually stands about 300m about the valley floor not ontop of a 3,700m mountain
Well spotted Chris, I was testing if you lot were awake, obviously.
What I meant to say was “The 117 metre-tall palace is built at an altitude of 3,700 m”.
Post updated. Thanks 🙂
lol no worries, my comment didn’t make much sense either.
Of course, it’s pure chance that this sight has been posted totally at random this week.
Unless there are 13 famous fairy tales depicted in the building, please could we have the correct spelling of “storeys”, plural of “storey”? Thanks!
@Jonathan – I think it was me that was asleep when writing this.
I have changed the US spelling to a british one as per requested, thanks 🙂
Sorry to bring about politics but….
When did Tibet become independent? “Your site has its own “visited Tibet” stamp separate from other countries.
it’s not political. there are certain regions that are autonomous within china. tibet is one of them, and so is hong kong. both have their own stamps. what are you going to say next, that taiwan should not have its own stamp since the chinese government claims the island of taiwan as a province?
sorry.. my bad.
They do have separate stamps for the US states, as well as for the constituent parts of the UK. I don’t think too much should be read into it.