Nangqên County, or Nangchen (Tibetan: ནང་ཆེན་རྫོང་།, Wylie: nang chen rdzong, ZYPY: Nangqên Zong, simplified Chinese: 囊谦县; traditional Chinese: 囊謙縣; pinyin: Nángqiān Xiàn), is a county of the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and is the southernmost county-level division of Qinghai province, China, bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region to the south. It was one of the five kingdoms of the historical region of Kham.[citation needed]
Nangqên County
囊谦县 · ནང་ཆེན་རྫོང་། | |
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County | |
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![]() Location of Nangqên County (red) within Yushu Prefecture (yellow) and Qinghai | |
Coordinates: 32°12′11″N 96°28′52″E | |
Country | People's Republic of China |
Province | Qinghai |
Autonomous prefecture | Yushu |
Area | |
• Total | 12,741 km2 (4,919 sq mi) |
Population (2019) | |
• Total | 101,126[1] |
Time zone | UTC+8 (China Standard) |
Postal code | 815200 |
The county seat is Xangda (shor mda’ / pinyin: Xiāngdá Zhèn 香达镇), built in a side valley and on the right bank of the Dza Chu (upper reaches of the Mekong). In 2000, the county's population amounted to 57,387 people, inhabiting a surface of 11,539 km2 (4,455 sq mi).
The county's name is derived from the former king (nang chen rgyal po) and kingdom of Nangchen, a tribal confederation that emerged as a unified Buddhist kingdom in the 13th century.[2] The present-day's county comprises the core area of the old kingdom of Nangchen.
Memories of the kingdom of Nangchen play a role in local politics, and among Tibetan refugees who came to India from the area. Scholar Maria Turek reported that in 2015 she heard about “a man who went to various Tibetan communities in India, introducing himself as ‘the king of Nangchen’ not without some success, even though he had no credentials to prove his claim.”[3]
A Yelpa Kagyu monastery, Tana Monastery (Jang Tana), was founded by Yelpa Yeshe Tsek in 1068. It is considered a branch monastery of Tsurpu.[4][5][6][7]
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