Ü-Tsang

Geographically Ü-Tsang covered the south-central part of the Tibetan cultural area, including the Brahmaputra River watershed.

The western districts surrounding and extending past Mount Kailash are included in Ngari, and much of the vast Changtang plateau to the north.

Ü-Tsang was formed by the merging of two earlier power centers: Ü (Wylie: dbus) in central Tibet, controlled by the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism under the early Dalai Lamas, and Tsang (Wylie: gtsang) which extended from Gyantse to points west, controlled by the rival Sakya lineage.

It was followed by the direct and indirect rule of the Qing Dynasty, which started in 1720 by the Qianlong Emperor and continued till the Chinese revolution of 1911.

The Lhasa dialect is used as a lingua franca in Ü-Tsang and the Tibetan Exile koiné language is also based largely on it.