Tholing

Tholing (Tibetan: མཐོ་ལྡིང་, Wylie: mtho lding, literally "high place";Chinese: 托林; pinyin: Tuōlín),[a] also called Zanda (Tibetan: རྩ་མདའ, Wylie: rtsa mda, THL: tsa da),[b] is a town and the seat of Zanda County, Ngari Prefecture, in the west of Tibet Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China.

Zanda is a Chinese name given to the ancient town known as Tholing, which was once the capital of the Ngari district in western Tibet.

The town, the monastery, and Tsaparang, a rocky range with forts, played an important role the history of Tibetan Buddhism in west Tibet.

Tholing and Tsaparang were the capital cities of the Parang-Guge Kingdom during the 10-11th centuries when Tibetan Buddhism civilization developed.

Visits to Tholing monastery and the ruins of Tsaparang are only authorized by permit; it is issued by the Cultural Relics Bureau located at Lhasa.

Ruins of Guge Kingdom