Tibet Area (administrative division)
| Tibet Area 西藏地方 བོད་ལྗོངས | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Area of the Republic of China (1912–1951) Area of the People's Republic of China (1951–1965) | |||||||||||
| 1912–1965 | |||||||||||
Map of the de jure Tibet Area within the ROC | |||||||||||
| Capital | Lhasa | ||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||
• 1953 | 1,221,600 km2 (471,700 sq mi) | ||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||
• 1953 | 1,274,969 | ||||||||||
| History | |||||||||||
• Tibet Area claimed by the ROC Provisional Government | 1 January 1912 | ||||||||||
• Established | 1951 | ||||||||||
| 23 May 1951 | |||||||||||
• Replacement of Kashag with the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region after the 1959 Tibetan rebellion | 1959 | ||||||||||
| 20 October 1962 | |||||||||||
| 22 April 1965 | |||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of | China ∟ Tibet Autonomous Region | ||||||||||
The Tibet Area (Chinese: 西藏地方; pinyin: Xīzàng Dìfāng, also translated as Tibet Region in the 1954 Sino-Indian Agreement) was a province-level administrative division of China in the 20th century. It was de jure created after the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, and nominally includes the Ü-Tsang (central Tibet) and Ngari (western Tibet) areas, but not the Amdo and Kham areas. The territories were merely claimed by the ROC, but actually controlled by an independent Tibet with a government headed by the Dalai Lama in Lhasa. At this time, the scope of de facto independent Tibet included the "Tibet area" and the Chamdo area west of the Jinsha River, which claimed by China. The ROC retreated to Taiwan and lost control of mainland China to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949; afterwards, the ROC continued to claim Tibet.
The PRC annexed Tibet in 1951 and continued to call it Tibet Area. It merged with the Chamdo Region and was transformed to Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965 after the 1959 Tibetan uprising.