Shigatse (officially : Xigazę) is a county-level city and the second largest city in Tibet with a population of 80,000. It is located at the confluence of the Yarlong Tsangpo (Yar-lung Gtsang-po) (or Brahmaputra) and Nyangchu (Nyang-chu) rivers in West Tibet and was the ancient capital of U-Tsang province. It is also the name of the surrounding county.
Shigatse is 273 kilometers west to Lhasa. At an elevation of 3,800 meters, it is the second biggest and the only county-level city in Tibet. Also, it is an ancient city in the altiplano with a history of nearly 600 years. It is named Xikasangzhuzi in Tibetan, and Xikazi for short, which stands for "a manor of the most fertile soil", and it is transliterated into Chinese as "Shigatse".
In the middle of the 13th century AD, the Yuan Dynasty set up 130,000 Hus (households) in Tibet and the region where now Shigatse covers was under the jurisdiction of the Xialu master. In the early 14th century, Great Situ (Minister of Education in ancient China), Jiangqujianzan, built Pazhu Dynasty to replace Sajia Dynasty, removing the political center in the lower reaches of Nianchuhe from Xialu to Shigatse and setting up Xikasangzhuzi there.
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Tibetan history
Tibet is situated between the two ancient civilizations of China and India, but the tangled mountain ranges the Tibetan Plateau and the towering Himalayas serve to distance it from both.
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