Locked in by towering mountains, Tibet on the southwestern border lies in the main part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the highest in the world, at an average altitude of 4,000 meters.

Set up as an autonomous region in 1965, it has an area of more than 1.2 million square kilometers and a population of 1.85 million, of which 15 per cent live in the cities and 85 per cent in the rural areas and 1.65 million are Tibetans, the predominant nationality there, and the rest Huis, Moinbas, Lhobas and Hans.