Yangbajain (also spelled Yangbajing; ) is a town approximately north-west of

Lhasa Lhasa (; Lhasa dialect: ; bo, text=ལྷ་ས, translation=Place of Gods) is the urban center of the prefecture-level city, prefecture-level Lhasa (prefecture-level city), Lhasa City and the administrative capital of Tibet Autonomous Regio ...

, halfway to

Damxung Damxung is a county of Lhasa City, lying to the north of its main center of Chengguan, in the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. Its administrative seat is Damquka. The terrain is rugged, including the western Nyenchen ...

in the

Tibet Autonomous Region The Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet or Xizang, is a Provinces of China, province-level Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China in Southwest China. I ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The town lies just south of the Nyainqêntanglha Mountains, in an upland lush green valley surrounded by the tents of

nomads A nomad is a member of a community without fixed habitation who regularly moves to and from the same areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the popu ...

with grazing

yak The domestic yak (''Bos grunniens''), also known as the Tartary ox, grunting ox or hairy cattle, is a species of long-haired domesticated cattle found throughout the Himalayan region of the Indian subcontinent, the Tibetan Plateau, Kachin Sta ...

and

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus ''Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticated s ...

populating the hillside. It is the site

Yangpachen Monastery Yangpachen Monastery is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yangpachen (Tibetan: ''yangs pa can''; ''Thub btsan yangs pa can''), in the Lhasa Prefecture of Tibet. It is historically the seat of the Shamarpas of Karma Kagyü. It is about southeast of ...

, which was historically the seat of the

Shamarpa The Shamarpa (; literally, "Person (i.e. Holder) of the Red Crown"), also known as ''Shamar Rinpoche'', or more formally Künzig Shamar Rinpoche, is a lineage holder of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism and is regarded to be the mind ma ...

s of

Karma Kagyü Karma Kagyu (), or Kamtsang Kagyu (), is a widely practiced and probably the second-largest lineage within the Kagyu school, one of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The lineage has long-standing monasteries in Tibet, China, Russia, ...

and the Yangbajing International Cosmic Ray Observatory.

Geothermal field

The area is famous for the

Yangbajain Geothermal Field The Yangbajain Geothermal Field (羊八井地热田) is a geothermal field near the town of Yangbajain in Damxung County, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. The fluid is heated by magmatic activity not far below the surface. It is a tourist attraction ...

, which has been harnessed to produce electricity for the capital

. There is a

thermoelectric The thermoelectric effect is the direct conversion of temperature differences to electric voltage and vice versa via a thermocouple. A thermoelectric device creates a voltage when there is a different temperature on each side. Conversely, when ...

power plant on the edge of the Yangbajain field covering 20–30 square kilometers. The power plant was established in 1977, and was the first development of

geothermal power Geothermal power is electrical power generated from geothermal energy. Technologies in use include dry steam power stations, flash steam power stations and binary cycle power stations. Geothermal electricity generation is currently used in 2 ...

not only in

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

but in the whole of

. The Yangbajain hot springs field is at an elevation of which makes it the highest elevation set of hot springs in China, and possibly the world. The highest temperature inside the drilling hole is 125.5°C.

Holy Medical Spring Resort

The Holy Medical Spring Resort has both two indoor swimming pools and one outdoor swimming pool, all filled with

hot springs A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...

water. Bathing is allowed at an elevation of 4200m AMSL, likely making it the highest swimming pool in the world. Qingzang railway Train 01

Yangbajing International Cosmic Ray Observatory

The YBJ International Cosmic Ray Observatory (羊八井国际宇宙线观测站) is located in the Yangbajing valley of the Tibetan highland, a site chosen for its high elevation at 4300 meters above sea level. Collaborating institutes includes the

INFN The Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN; "National Institute for Nuclear Physics") is the coordinating institution for nuclear, particle, theoretical and astroparticle physics in Italy. History INFN was founded on 8 August 1951, to furth ...

(Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) and various Chinese and Japanese universities. The

KOSMA The Kölner Observatorium für SubMillimeter Astronomie (KOSMA) was a radio telescope for submillimeter astronomy located at on Gornergrat near Zermatt ( Switzerland). It was operated by I. Physikalisches Institut, University of Cologne, and Rad ...

3-m submillimeter telescope has been relocated to a nearby site and renamed CCOSMA.

References

{{coord, 30, 5, N, 90, 33, E, display=title, region:CN_type:city_source:zhwiki Populated places in Lhasa (prefecture-level city) Astronomical observatories in China Damxung County

Geothermal field

Holy Medical Spring Resort

Yangbajing International Cosmic Ray Observatory

See also

References