Potala Palace Travel Guide
Potala Palace Overview
The Potala Palace, located on Red Hill in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, is a world-renowned ancient palace-fortress complex and one of the outstanding representatives of ancient Chinese architecture.
Construction of the Potala Palace began in the 7th century under the reign of the 33rd Tibetan King, Songtsen Gampo. Historical records state that the palace complex at that time was vast in scale, featuring three outer walls and a thousand chambers. However, by the 9th century, wars, fires, and lightning strikes had inflicted severe damage on the structure, leaving it largely abandoned. In the 17th century, with the support of the central government of the Qing Dynasty, the Fifth Dalai Lama rebuilt the Potala Palace, designating it as the political and religious center of Tibet.
Since then, the palace underwent successive expansions, and by the 1930s it had developed into a monumental complex covering an area of about 400,000 square meters, with a total floor space of 130,000 square meters. The main building, rising to a height of 115.703 meters, comprises 1,267 rooms, serving multiple functions including palaces, stupas, Buddhist halls, administrative offices, monastic schools, and monks’ quarters, forming a grand palace-fortress complex of remarkable scale and significance.
*The Potala Palace under the night sky.
*The Potala Palace beneath the snow-capped mountains
The construction history of the Potala Palace spans over 1,300 years, with its architecture and cultural relics reflecting the political, economic, and cultural exchanges, interactions, and integration among various ethnic groups in China. In particular, during the large-scale expansion of the palace in the 17th century, craftsmen from multiple ethnic groups, including Tibetan and Han, took part, incorporating and preserving outstanding traditional techniques from different cultures.
The vast collection of artifacts housed in the palace—especially scriptures, thangkas, statues, silk fabrics, imperial edicts and decrees, official seals appointing Tibetan local officials, as well as inscribed plaques and memorial tablets bestowed by emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties—provides powerful evidence that Tibet has been an inseparable part of China since ancient times.
Preservation and Global Recognition of the Potala Palace
The Potala Palace holds immense historical, scientific, and artistic value. Since the peaceful liberation of Tibet, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council have attached great importance to its preservation, allocating special funds annually for its maintenance.
The palace has undergone two large-scale restorations, ensuring the longevity of this majestic monument and fully reflecting the implementation of the Party and the state’s policies on ethnic unity, religion, and cultural heritage protection in Tibet.
In 1961, the State Council listed the Potala Palace among the first batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level. In 1994, it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, and in 2013, it was recognized as one of Tibet’s first national 5A-level tourist attractions.
