Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, also known as Aba (; Qiang: ; ), is an

autonomous prefecture Autonomous prefectures () are one type of autonomous administrative divisions of China, existing at the prefectural level, with either ethnic minorities forming over 50% of the population or being the historic home of significant minorities. ...

of northwestern

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

, bordering

Gansu Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibe ...

to the north and northeast and

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest p ...

to the northwest. Its seat is in

Barkam Barkam or Markang or Muerkvua is a county-level city in Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, in the northwest of Sichuan province, People's Republic of China. The city seat is the town of Barkam. Administrative divisions Barkam has f ...

, and it has an area of . The population was 919,987 in late 2013. The county of Wenchuan in Ngawa is the site of the epicenter of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, in which over 20,000 of its residents died and 40,000 were injured.

History and names

During the reign of Tibet's king Trisong Deutsen in the 8th century, the Gyalrong area was visited by the great translator Vairotsana. In 1410

Je Tsongkhapa Tsongkhapa ('','' meaning: "the man from Tsongkha" or "the Man from Onion Valley", c. 1357–1419) was an influential Tibetan Buddhist monk, philosopher and tantric yogi, whose activities led to the formation of the Gelug school of Tibetan Bud ...

's student Tshakho Ngawang Tapa established the first

Tibetan Buddhist Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in ma ...

Gelug 240px, The 14th Dalai Lama (center), the most influential figure of the contemporary Gelug tradition, at the 2003 Bodhgaya (India). The Gelug (, also Geluk; "virtuous")Kay, David N. (2007). ''Tibetan and Zen Buddhism in Britain: Transplantati ...

school monastery in the area, called "Gyalrong". In contemporary history, most of Ngawa was under the 16th Administrative Prefecture of Szechwan (), which was established by the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

(ROC). The People's Republic of China defeated ROC troops in this area during Chinese Civil war and subsequently established a Tibetan autonomous prefecture by late 1952. It was renamed Aba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in 1956 and Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in 1987. On May 12, 2008, a major earthquake occurred in Wenchuan County (), a county in the southeastern part of this autonomous prefecture. 20,258 people were killed, 45,079 injured, 7,696 missing in the prefecture as of June 6, 2008. In 2009, the town of

Ngaba Ngaba is a municipality ('' commune'') in the Mont Amba district of Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially " ...

in Ngawa prefecture became the

self-immolation The term self-immolation broadly refers to acts of altruistic suicide, otherwise the giving up of one's body in an act of sacrifice. However, it most often refers specifically to autocremation, the act of sacrificing oneself by setting oneself o ...

capital of the world. From 2009 to 2019, more than 60 of Tibet's total 156 self-immolations occurred in Ngaba. By 2020, the town's entrances were barricaded and surveillance cameras installed, with some 50,000 security personnel for the town's population of 15,000. In 2008, Aba county was stripped of its internet connections. Internet access in the prefecture remains severely restricted as of 2013.

Geography

Most of the prefecture lies in the Tibetan cultural and historical region of

Amdo Amdo ( �am˥˥.to˥˥ ) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari (including former Guge kingdom) in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the bi ...

. The west, and part of Kardze, is also known as Gyalrong.

Gyalrong people Gyalrong people (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་རོང, Chinese:嘉绒), also called Jiarong, rGyalrong, are speakers of the Qiangic Gyalrong language who live in the southern part of Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan, China. Th ...

speak a Qiangic language known as Gyalrong language. The source of the Min River and its tributary Dadu River are to be found in Ngawa.

Demographics

, the prefecture's population was 919,987 inhabitants at a density of 10.91 per km²:

Languages

Major languages spoken in Aba Prefecture include Tibetan,

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...

and many vernaculars of the

Qiangic languages Qiangic (''Ch'iang, Kyang, Tsiang'', Chinese: 羌語支, "''Qiang'' language group"; formerly known as Dzorgaic) is a group of related languages within the Sino-Tibetan language family. They are spoken mainly in Southwest China, including Sichua ...

which vary from county to county: *

: rGyalrong * Li County: Southern Qiang, rGyalrong * Mao County: Northern Qiang, Southern Qiang *

Jiuzhaigou County Jiuzhaigou County (; ) is a county of Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. Formerly called Nanping County (), it was renamed in 1998 to reflect the fact that the Jiuzhaigou Va ...

: Baima *

Jinchuan County Jinchuan County (; ) is a county in the northwest of Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture. The seat of county is Jinchuan Town (Rabden). The county spans an area of 5,524 ...

: Khroskyabs, rGyalrong * Xiaojin County: rGyalrong * Heishui County: Northern Qiang, rGyalrong * Zamtang County:

Amdo Tibetan Amdo Tibetan (; also called ''Am kä'') is the Tibetic language spoken in Amdo (now mostly in Qinghai, some in Ngawa and Gannan). It has two dialects, the farmer dialect and the nomad dialect. Amdo is one of the three branches of traditional cl ...

In April 2020, classroom instruction was switched from Tibetan to Mandarin Chinese in Ngaba.

Administrative divisions

The region is composed of one

county-level city A county-level municipality (), county-level city or county city, formerly known as prefecture-controlled city (1949–1970: ; 1970–1983: ), is a county-level administrative division of the People's Republic of China. County-level ...

and twelve

counties A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

: Though situated within Wenchuan County, Wolong National Nature Reserve and Wolong Special Administrative Region are administered separately by th
Forestry Department of Sichuan

Transportation

The prefecture is served by Hongyuan Airport in the west and Jiuzhai Huanglong Airport in the east. Private taxis can be hired from these airports. ''Jiuzhaigou Train Station'' is under construction north-west of

's town. The railway is to run between

Chengdu Chengdu (, ; simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), alternatively romanized as Chengtu, is a sub-provincial city which serves as the capital of the Chinese province ...

and

Lanzhou Lanzhou (, ; ) is the capital and largest city of Gansu Province in Northwest China. Located on the banks of the Yellow River, it is a key regional transportation hub, connecting areas further west by rail to the eastern half of the country. H ...

Tourism

Tourism produced 71.0% of the GDP of the prefecture in 2006. There are many places of interest in the prefecture, including * Wolong National Nature Reserve in Wenchuan County, a well-known

giant panda The giant panda (''Ailuropoda melanoleuca''), also known as the panda bear (or simply the panda), is a bear species endemic to China. It is characterised by its bold black-and-white coat and rotund body. The name "giant panda" is sometimes us ...

reserve where the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda was established in 1980 *

Kirti Gompa Kirti Gompa ( bo, ཀིརྟི་དགོན་པ།), is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery founded in 1472 and located in Ngawa, Sichuan province, in China, but traditionally part of Amdo region. Numerous other associated Kirti monasteries ...

, a 15th-century Tibetan Buddhism monastery * Nangzhik Gompa monastery, founded in the 12th century * Huanglong Scenic and Historic Interest Area in Songpan County * Jiuzhaigou,

, a nature reserve known for its many multi-level waterfalls and colorful lakes, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992 * Mount Siguniang ( "Sku Mountain"; formerly , a transcription), the highest point of the Qionglai Mountains, on the border between Xiaojin County (; Tibetan: ) and Wenchuan County.

References

External links

Aba, China - Official website of Prefectural Government
{{authority control Tibetan autonomous prefectures Prefecture-level divisions of Sichuan Qiang people