Norbulingka
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Norbulingka also refers to the Norbulingka Institute.
Norbulingka (Tibetan: ནོར་འུ་གླིང་ཀ་; Wylie: Nor-bu-gling-ka) is a palace and surrounding park in Lhasa, Tibet which served as the traditional summer residence of the successive Dalai Lamas from the 1780s up until the PRC takeover in the late 1950s. The park was built by the Seventh Dalai Lama in the 1750s, and became the summer residence during the reign of the Eighth Dalai Lama.
The palace is located three kilometers west of the Potala Palace which was the winter palace. Additional buildings were added to the park during the first half of the 20th century. In 2001, UNESCO inscribed Norbulingka on its World Heritage List as part of the "Historic Ensemble of the Potala Palace".
There is also a zoo at Norbulingka, originally to keep the animals which were given to the Dalai Lama. Heinrich Harrer helped the 14th Dalai Lama build a movie theatre there in the 1950s.