Country China County seat Rongwu Town Time zone China Standard (UTC+8) Area 3,275 km² Local time Monday 5:57 AM Area code 0973 | Autonomous prefecture Huangnan Elevation 2,480 m (8,140 ft) Postal code 811399 Population 92,601 (2010) Province Qinghai | |
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Weather -5°C, Wind SW at 2 km/h, 82% Humidity | ||
Tongren County (Tibetan: ཐུན་རིན་རྫོང་, Wylie: thung ren rdzong; Chinese: 同仁县; pinyin: Tóngrén Xiàn), known to Tibetans as Rebgong (Tibetan: རེབ་གོང་, རེབ་ཀོང་, or རེབ་སྐོང་) in the historic region of Amdo is the capital and second smallest administrative subdivision by area within Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai, China. The county has an area of 3465 square kilometers and a population of ~80,000 (2002), 75% Tibetan. The economy of the county includes agriculture and aluminium mining.
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Map of Tongren, Huangnan, Qinghai, China
The county has a number of Tibetan Buddhist temples and gompas, including the large and significant Rongwo Monastery of the Gelug school. It is known as a center of thangka painting. Rebgong arts where named to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists in 2009.
In October, 2010 there were reports of large demonstrations in Tongren by Tibetan students who reportedly shouted the slogans, “equality of ethnic groups” and “freedom of language."
Demographics and languages
The Amdo Tibetan is the lingua franca of Tongren County and the surrounding region, which is populated by Tibetan and Hui people, as well as some Han Chinese and Mongols.
The Wutun language, a Chinese-Bonan-Tibetan mixed language, is spoken by some 2,000 people in the two villages of Upper and Lower Wutun, located on the eastern bank of the Rongwo River.
Climate
Tongren County lies on the border between a highland humid continental climate (Köppen Dwb) and a semi-arid climate (Köppen BSk). Like all of eastern Tibet, it features mild and wet summers with thunderstorms on most afternoons, and cold, clear, dry winters with large diurnal temperature swings due to the clear, thin air.