Place · provincial capital & air hub · China
Chengdu
Also known as Chengtu
Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, is the eastern gateway city for Tibet and the primary air hub between Lhasa and the rest of China — Chengdu Shuangliu airport runs 15-plus daily flights to Lhasa Gongkar and is the first non-Tibetan stop for most Chinese and foreign visitors to the plateau. Historically Chengdu was the Chinese terminus of the Tea Horse Road down which Pu'er and Yunnan black tea travelled by porter and yak-caravan to Tibet in exchange for Tibetan ponies — the trade is attested from the Tang period and ran continuously until the 1950s road-building. The city also carries the Daci Monastery, where Xuanzang took full Buddhist ordination in 622 CE before his famous journey west to India.
- Function
- Trade & production
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 30.660, 104.063
Connections (2)
- Trade routeLhasa
Chengdu is the eastern gateway city for Tibet and the primary air hub between Lhasa and the rest of China — Chengdu Shuangliu airport runs 15-plus daily flights to Lhasa Gongkar. Historically Chengdu was the Chinese terminus of the Tea Horse Road, down which Pu'er and Yunnan black tea travelled by porter and yak-caravan to Tibet in exchange for Tibetan ponies — the trade is attested from the Tang period and ran continuously until the 1950s road-building replaced it with the Sichuan-Tibet highway.
- Life routeXuanzang
Chengdu's Daci Monastery is where Xuanzang took full Buddhist ordination in 622 CE as a 22-year-old novice, five years before he set out from Chang'an in 627 against the imperial travel ban on what became his 16-year overland journey to India via Central Asia, returning in 645 with 657 manuscripts.
Sources
Standard reference.
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