Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, also known as Aba (Tibetan: རྔ་བ་བོད་རིགས་དང་ཆང་རིགས་རང་སྐྱོང་ཁུལ།, Wylie: rnga ba bod rigs cha'ang rigs rang skyong khul; Qiang: Rrmeabba Shbea Rrmea Nyujwju Gvexueaj Legea; simplified Chinese: 阿坝藏族羌族自治州; traditional Chinese: 阿壩藏族羌族自治州), is an autonomous prefecture of northwestern Sichuan, bordering Gansu to the north and northeast and Qinghai to the northwest.

During the reign of Tibet's king Trisong Deutsen in the 8th century, the Gyalrong area was visited by the great translator Vairotsana.

In 1410 Je Tsongkhapa's student Tshakho Ngawang Tapa established the first Tibetan Buddhist Gelug school monastery in the area, called "Gyalrong".

[3] The People's Republic of China defeated ROC troops in this area during Chinese Civil war and subsequently established a Tibetan autonomous prefecture by late 1952.

As of 2013[update], the prefecture's population was 919,987 inhabitants at a density of 10.91 per km2:[7] Major languages spoken in Aba Prefecture include Tibetan, Mandarin Chinese and many vernaculars of the Qiangic languages which vary from county to county: In April 2020, classroom instruction was switched from Tibetan to Mandarin Chinese in Ngaba.