| Qamdo Chamdo Chengguan |
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|---|---|
| — Town — | |
| 城关镇 | |
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Qamdo
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| Coordinates: | |
| Country | People's Republic of China |
| Region | Tibet |
| Prefecture | Qamdo |
| County | Qamdo |
| Area | |
| • Total | 195.39 km2 (75.4 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 3,256 m (10,682 ft) |
| Time zone | China Standard (UTC+8) |
Qamdo (Tibetan: ཆབ་མདོ་, Wylie: chab-mdo; simplified Chinese: 昌都镇; traditional Chinese: 昌都鎮; pinyin: Chāngdū Zhèn), or Chamdo, officially organised as Chengguan of Qamdo County (simplified Chinese: 城关镇; traditional Chinese: 城關鎮; pinyin: Chéngguān Zhèn, city seat), population in 1999 about 86,280,[1] is a major town in the historical region of Kham in the eastern Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. The capital of Qamdo County and Qamdo Prefecture, it is Tibet's third largest city after Lhasa and Shigatse.[2] It is located about 480 km (as the crow flies) from Lhasa. On the road the distance covers 1,120 km (southern route) or 1,030 km (northern route).[3] It is at an altitude of 3,230 metres (10,600 ft) at the confluence of the rivers Za Qu and Ngom Qu which form the Lancang River, the Mekong.
At the turn of the 20th century it had a population of about 12,000, a quarter of whom were monks.[2]
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Qamdo was visited by Tsongkhapa in 1373 who suggested a monastery be built there. Galden Jampaling Monastery was constructed between 1436 and 1444 by a disciple of Tsongkhapa, Jansem Sherab Zangpo.[4] It is also known as the Changbalin or Qiangbalin Si Monastery. At its height it contained five main temples and housed some 2,500 monks.[5] It was destroyed in 1912 but the main hall (which was used as a prison) and two other buildings survived, and it was rebuilt in 1917 after the Tibetan army retook Qamdo. It now houses about 800 monks.[6][7]
The invasion of Qamdo by the 40,000-man army of the People's Republic of China on October 19, 1950, served as an important precursor to the eventual signing of the Seventeen Point Agreement between the Central People's Government in Beijing and the government of the Dalai Lama in the following year.[8] Qamdo's governor at the time of the occupation was Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme, who later became an official in the government of the People's Republic of China. The previous governor of Qamdo was Lhalu Tsewang Dorje.
Qamdo experiences a climate that is a transition between a humid continental and subtropical highland climate (Köppen Dwb and Cwb), with warm, wet summers and very dry, frosty winters. Monthly averages range from −2.3 °C (27.9 °F) in January to 16.0 °C (60.8 °F) in July, with an annual mean of 7.57 °C (45.6 °F). Due to the high elevation differences between daytime and nighttime temperatures are usually large, especially during the dry winter months. The annual average diurnal temperature variation is 16.0 °C (28.8 °F).
| Climate data for Qamdo | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Average high °C (°F) | 8.0 (46.4) |
9.8 (49.6) |
13.0 (55.4) |
16.4 (61.5) |
20.8 (69.4) |
23.5 (74.3) |
23.9 (75.0) |
23.4 (74.1) |
21.2 (70.2) |
17.4 (63.3) |
12.5 (54.5) |
9.0 (48.2) |
16.58 (61.84) |
| Average low °C (°F) | −10.4 (13.3) |
−7.2 (19.0) |
−2.8 (27.0) |
1.0 (33.8) |
5.1 (41.2) |
8.9 (48.0) |
10.3 (50.5) |
9.5 (49.1) |
7.0 (44.6) |
1.5 (34.7) |
−5.5 (22.1) |
−9.9 (14.2) |
0.63 (33.13) |
| Precipitation mm (inches) | 1.2 (0.047) |
4.0 (0.157) |
9.6 (0.378) |
23.0 (0.906) |
39.2 (1.543) |
85.2 (3.354) |
100.2 (3.945) |
96.8 (3.811) |
76.1 (2.996) |
31.3 (1.232) |
5.5 (0.217) |
2.4 (0.094) |
474.5 (18.681) |
| Avg. precipitation days (≥ 0.1 mm) | 2.2 | 3.1 | 5.7 | 10.9 | 13.2 | 17.9 | 19.7 | 18.1 | 17.8 | 9.6 | 5.5 | 2.4 | 126.1 |
| Sunshine hours | 195.3 | 175.2 | 189.1 | 195.0 | 220.1 | 201.0 | 198.4 | 201.5 | 192.0 | 204.6 | 201.0 | 204.6 | 2,377.8 |
| Source no. 1: China Weather (1971−2000) [9] | |||||||||||||
| Source no. 2: Hong Kong Observatory (sun only, 1961−1990) [10] | |||||||||||||
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