Gonggar County 贡嘎县 • གོང་དཀར་རྫོང་། |
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County | |
Location of Gonggar County within Tibet |
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Location in Tibet | |
Coordinates: 29°23′57″N 91°07′08″E / 29.39917°N 91.11889°E | |
Country | People's Republic of China |
Region | Tibet |
Prefecture-level city | Shannnan |
County seat | Gonggar |
Area | |
• Total | 2,283 km2 (881 sq mi) |
Population (2003) | |
• Total | 50,000 |
Time zone | China Standard (UTC+8) |
Gonggar County, also Gongkar (Tibetan: གོང་དཀར་རྫོང་ Wylie: gong dkar rdzong; Chinese: 贡嘎县; pinyin: Gònggá Xiàn), is a county of Shannan in the Tibet Autonomous Region, one of the 12 counties of the prefecture. It has under its jurisdiction 5 towns, 3 townships, 43 administrative villages (neighbourhood committees) and 168 village development committees and contains notable landmarks such as the Gonggar Choide Monastery, the Gonggar Dzong, and the Gonggar Airport and the Gonggar town.
The fable narrated about this county is that the "first Tibetan was born to the fairy girl, Ruosa and her monkey lover".
History of the county came into limelight with the establishment of the Sakyapa school of Tibetan Buddhism. Among the many dzongs and monasteries established in the 14th century the best known are the Gonngar Dzong and the Gonggar Choede Monastery.
In recent history of the county, during the Cultural Revolution of the 1950s, Gonggar County was the scene of armed rebellion between the Kamba rebels (under the banner of “four rivers and six mountain ranges”) and the Peoples Liberation Army of China (PLA); PLA troops were killed and their convoy of army vehicles ambushed here.
Gonggar County is located in southern Tibet and has a total area of 2,283 square kilometres (881 sq mi). The Yarlung Tsangpo River (Brahmaputra River), the mother river of Tibet, flows through the Gonggar County and among other counties of Shannan, and is thus rich in water resources. Set in west to east direction, the county is a plateau land with an average altitude of 3,750 metres (12,300 ft). The Gonggar County is situated at a location where Yarlung Tsangpo River is very wide. It is for this reason that the Gonggar Airport was constructed at this location. The airport lies to the west of Rawa-me, which is the capital of the county at the entry of the Namrab Valley, 96 kilometres (60 mi) from Lhasa and 87 kilometres (54 mi) from Tsetang, the capital of Shannan. The county is bounded by the Mount Chuwaru (held sacred in Tibet) opposite to Chusul, the Gompa La (4,794 kilometres (2,979 mi)) Pass to the south on the route to the sacred Yamdrok Lake in West Tibet, on the east to the limits of the Dal Valley on the south bank of the Brahmaputra and Dorje Monastery on the north bank. The county also envelops the southern side valleys of Namrab and Drib counties and the northern side valleys of Leuchung and Trango counties.