Meanwhile, China is home to about 5.4 million Tibetans, according to the 2000 Chinese census, with less than half of them in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) and most others in communities now absorbed within western provinces of China.
The Tibetan capital city of Lhasa was ground zero for the March 2008 protests, which soon spread to Tibetan regions in other provinces.Īpproximately 122,078 Tibetans, including those born in Tibet and those of Tibetan ancestry, live in exile in Asia and Oceania, Europe, and North America, according to a census conducted in 1998 by the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in Dharamsala, India (The CTA website now puts the figure at 111,170). Once imbued in an aura of adventure, remoteness, and exoticism, the region of the high Himalayan and Central Asian plateau is a global hot spot for ethnic, national, and territorial conflicts.Īt the heart of the region is Tibet, whose struggles reflect those of the region at large.
