With their numbers estimated at between five and six million, the Tibetan people inhabit an immense plateau, a high-elevation desert bordered by barren cold expanses and the world's highest mountains, the Himalaya.

Cultural Tibet is far larger than the territory within China called the Tibet Autonomous Region. This "Greater Tibet" includes Bhutan, northern Nepal, and sections of Kashmir in northern India. Significant parts of China's Gansu, Qinghai, Sichaun, and Yunnan Provinces are ethnically Tibetan as well.

Groups influenced by Tibetan culture are the Sherpas of Nepal, the Drukpas of Bhutan, and the Ladakhis of northern India. Dozens of smaller groups speaking diverse dialects contribute to the complex Tibetan world.

Harsh physical barriers, along with official isolation, allowed Tibetans to maintain a nearly medieval way of life into the mid-20th century. Their culture developed in the relatively well-watered southern part of the plateau, where raising barley proved possible. In the great north, nomads living in tents tended livestock, primarily the ubiquitous yak.

In the seventh century Buddhism was introduced from China and was soon followed by the arrival of Buddhist missionaries from India. Spiritual and secular institutions blended together, touching all aspects of life. The land eventually supported 6,000 monasteries, which required most families to have at least one son as a monk.

Although Tibetan Buddhism has several branches, the Gelukpa sect has been dominant since the 17th century, when the fifth Dalai Lama reached the top of Tibet's religious government. Buddhism fostered a sophisticated civilization of advanced learning and philosophy that survives to this day, though in limited form.

Tibet's unofficial independence from 1912 to 1950 ended when China occupied the country. In 1959 China forced the exile of the Dalai Lama and 80,000 of his followers to India. Suppression of religion and destruction of monasteries followed, and a steady influx of Chinese immigrants has diluted the indigenous population.