For many centuries Tibet appeared in the view of western cultures as mysterious and legendary, as the wondrous "roof of the world".

There was little knowledge about its history that includes more than thousand years and many dramatic changes. The specific Tibetan way of life is influenced mainly by the high altitude and vastness of its landscape  and the buddhist religion, which forms the daily life until today. Historically, a cultural zone of Tibetan influence and a political Tibetan-ruled state can be separated. The tibetan-influenced cultural zone includes the tropical regions near Birma in the south and reaches the grasslands of Mongolia in the north.

Brief historical overview

Until the 7th century the Tibetans lived as nomads without a culture of reading and writing in tribal communities. Their religion was called "Bon", an archaic tradition with animistic-schamanistic features.

The first Tibetan kingdom was ruled by Songtsen Gampo (629-649). It reached Nepal and the north of India in the south and the central asian grasslands in the north and east. By politically motivated marriages, the buddhist religion appeared in Tibet. Including elements of the old-time Bon-religion, a specific Tibetan form of Buddhist culture was formed.

Under these circumstances and mainly by the work of monks, a big amount of writings developed. The monastic way of life became dominant in the political structures, so that over the centuries, Tibet was ruled more and more by monks. Since the 16th century, the Dalai Lama is not only spiritual, but also political leader of Tibet.

These political structures included negotiations with Mongolian and later Chinese emperors, which resulted in a complicated system of both independence and participation. In this state, Tibet was culturally sovereign, had its own administration, but the foreign policy depended closely to the big neighbor.

Geographically, three big parts can be separated: the central-tibetan plateau, called "U-Tsang", the grassland of "Amdo" in the north-east, and the more tropic and fertile south-east, called "Kham".

In the 18th century Amdo and Kham became part of Chinese districts Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu for the first time. In 1913, during a international meeting under British chairmanship, a "inner" and "outer" Tibet were separated, but the negotiations with China concerning Tibets political status were not yet finished. China refused the ratification of this treaty, so in fact Tibet existed as an independent state from 1913-1950, though without any international acknowledgment.

After the chinese invasion in 1950, new frontiers were established. In 1965, China formed the "Autonomous region of Tibet" in central Tibet and counts the region of Amdo and Kham as parts of the Chinese districts of Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan and Gansu.