Lhassa ('the Seat of the Gods'), the capital of Tibet and sacred city of the Lamaist Buddhists, is situated in a fertile plain, 11,910 feet above the sea, and surrounded by mountains ranging from 2000 to 4000 above that altitude. The city stands in 29° 39' N. lat. and 90° 57' E. long., about 45 miles NE. of the junction of the Ki-chu with the Yaro San-po; the former river flows past the city westwards about a mile to the south. The city proper is surrounded with a wall, and consists of a closely-packed assemblage of good stone and brick houses and shops, with ecclesiastical buildings, chiefly temples, sandwiched in between. Outside this central city lie extensive suburbs, the houses standing in gardens, ranged on each side of broad, tree-shaded streets. The monasteries, some fifteen in number, are scattered over the plain and in the suburbs. Just outside the central city on the northwest stands a conical hill, Potala, which is thickly encrusted with palaces and temples, their roofs all gilded; this is the abode of the Grand Lama (see LAMAISM). If Potala is the Vatican of the Buddhists, they have their St Peter's in the temple of Labrang or Cho-khang, which overlooks the great square in the very heart of the city. The most sacred of its shrines contains a life-size image of Buddha and images of several other notabilities of the Buddhist faith. Near the north end of the city stand two famous temples, known as Ramo-Chhe and Moru, the monks of which practise sorcery and magic, and grant degrees in the same. The most celebrated of the monasteries are perhaps those known as the Four Ling, from the heads of which the regent of Tibet is always chosen; Chiakpori, the medical university; Dai-pung, the school of Buddhist philosophy; and the Galdan Lamaserai (25 miles NE. of the city), the abbot of which is one of the highest dignitaries in the Buddhist church. But Lhassa is something more than the ecclesiastical and religious centre of the Buddhist faith; it is an important trading centre, a terminus for caravans to and from India, Cashmere, Burma, China, Mongolia, and Turkestan. The principal article of commerce is tea; next to this come silks, carpets, rice, tobacco, horses, sheep, musk, European and Indian manufactured goods, &c. There is an important colony of Kashmiris, who, though Mohammedans, are tolerated because of their usefulness as traders. The resident population, exclusive of the garrison and the monks, is about 15,000. The number of inmates in the individual monasteries ranges from 3000 to 7000, or even more. The Chinese maintain a small garrison (some 500 men); and the Chinese emperor is represented by two resident officials, who, though they do not sit on the supreme council of the Grand Lama (who is also the civil ruler of Tibet), exercise considerable influence on the government indirectly. The resident population is, however, generally augmented by a floating population of pilgrims and traders, in numbers varying from 40,000 to 80,000. The women of Lhassa go about with perfect freedom; they stain their faces with black spots. Tibet became tributary to China about 1720, and has never since shaken off the yoke. Owing to the jealous exclusiveness of the Tibetan and Chinese authorities, and the close watch they keep all along the frontiers, it is believed that only three Europeans have entered Lhassa during the 19th century, namely the Englishman Manning (in 1811-12) and the Frenchmen Huc and Gabet (1846), though several Europeans reached the city in previous centuries. But since about 1866 specially trained Indian explorers have from time to time been sent into Tibet by the Calcutta authorities; to them we owe most of our newer information about that strange country.
See Huc's Travels in Tartary, Thibet, &c. (2 vols. 1844); Narrative of the Mission of G. Bogle and of the Journey of T. Manning to Lhasa, edited by C. Markham (1876); 'Explorations by A—k in Tibet,' in Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc. (1885); and papers by G. Sandberg, in Nineteenth Century (October 1889) and Contemp. Review (July 1890).