Garze Overview

Garze Overview introduces Garze fast facts including the Basic Information, Population, Climate, Geography, Culture History, Economy, Natural Resources, landmarks, Administrative Diversions, etc.

Basic Information 

Geography of Garze

Location

Garze Prefecture, located in the west of Sichuan Province, is a part of the Western Sichuan Plateau in the northern part of Hengduanshan system and part of the Qinghai Tibet Plateau, between 27 ° 58 ″ - 34 ° 20 ″ N and 97 ° 22 ″ - 102 ° 29 ″ E, in the transition zone from the western edge of Sichuan basin to the Qinghai Tibet Plateau. It is adjacent to Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and Ya'an City in the East, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture and Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province in the south, Chamdo city in Tibet Autonomous Region in the west along Jinsha River, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province in the north.

Landform

The landform of Garze Prefecture is high in the north and low in the south, protruding in the middle, deep in the southeast edge, parallel mountains and rivers, longitudinal rivers from north to south, and with obvious regional differences. The altitude difference between the northern plateau and the southern Valley is about 3000 meters, and the highest peak, Gongga Mountain, 7556 meters high. It is the highest peak in Sichuan. The horizontal distance between the northern plateau and the Dadu River Valley on the east slope is only 29 kilometers, while the relative altitude difference is 6400 meters. The landform of the whole Prefecture can be divided into three types: hilly plateau area, high mountain plain area and high mountain gorge (deep) valley area.

People of Garze

In 2018, the registered population of the whole Prefecture was 1100500. Among them, 555400 are male and 545100 are female. In terms of urban and rural areas, there are 192400 registered urban population and 908100 registered rural population. In the whole year, 10328 people were born, with a birth rate of 9.77 ‰; 3593 people died, with a mortality rate of 3.4 ‰; and a natural population growth rate of 6.37 ‰. At the end of the year, there were 1.196 million permanent residents, an increase of 9700 over the previous year. Among them, there are 378700 urban residents and 817300 rural residents. The urbanization rate of permanent resident population is 31.66%, 1.1% higher than that at the end of last year.

There are 25 ethnic groups in Garze, including Yi, Tibetan, Qiang, Miao, Hui, Mongolian, Tujia, Lisu, Man, Yao, Dong, Naxi, Buyi, Bai, Zhuang and Dai, with a total population of 900000. Among them, Tibetans accounted for 78.4%. People of all ethnic groups live together in a large area and concentrate in a small area.

Climate of Garze

The climate of the Garze prefecture in Sichuan is mainly Qinghai Tibet Plateau climate, which is vertical distribution with the altitude difference. It is characterized by low temperature, long winter, less precipitation and sufficient sunshine. The geographical latitude of Garze Prefecture belongs to the subtropical climate area, but due to the strong uplift, complex terrain and deep inland, most of the areas have lost the subtropical climate characteristics, forming the continental plateau mountain monsoon climate, which is complex and diverse, with significant regional differences. With the increase of latitude from south to north, the temperature gradually decreases. Within the six latitudes, the average annual temperature difference is over 17 ℃.

Best Time to Visit

Ganzi Prefecture is located in the high mountain and plateau area of Northwest Sichuan. It is long and cold in winter and rainy and foggy in summer. Therefore, spring and autumn are the best season to visit Garze. If you like the beautiful scenery of snow capped plateau, you can travel between November and December, but you need to take more safety protection measures than usual. It is not recommended to travel between January and February, because many places in Garze Prefecture will be blocked by snow at this time, so it is very inconvenient to travel.

Administrative Divisions of Garze

Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture has jurisdiction over 1 county-level city of Kangding, 17 counties including Luding and Danba, 325 townships (towns) and 2679 administrative villages.

Culture of Garze

Garze Prefecture is the second largest Tibetan area in China and the core area of Kangba. For thousands of years, the ancestors living here have created a splendid, colorful and profound Kangba culture. Kangba culture includes love song culture, Gesar culture, Shambhala culture, red culture, religious culture and other folk culture. This is the hometown of love songs, the birthplace of Kangba culture, the hometown of King Gesar, the core area of Shangri-La, the center of Jiarong culture, the main line of the ancient tea horse road,etc. Batang Xianzi dance, Garze tap dance, Serxu Zhenda Guozhuang are well-known at home and abroad. There is the only Baiyu Geba patriarchal culture in China, and unique regional culture such as Daofu Zaba walking marriage custom. The long march of the red army passed through 16 counties of Garze Prefecture and lasted for a year and a half, leaving behind a large number of revolutionary relics. It is also the place where many tribal alliances thrived, such as the Fuguo, Dongnu, Jialiang, Bailang, Maoniuqiang, and where Tubo developed and operated. There are strong Tibetan culture, Di culture (Jiarong), Dangxiang culture (Muya), as well as the remnants of Aboriginal culture, Naxi culture, Mongolian culture, the Central Plains Qin and Jin cultures.

Transportation of Garze

Ganzi Prefecture has a large area and traffic has been a major obstacle to the development of the region. Traffic inconvenience is the first impression of Ganzi transportation. Since 2012, the Prefecture committee and the government of Ganzi Prefecture have made transportation construction the top priority of development, and in recent years, the transportation of Ganzi has been greatly developed. Taking a plane or coach to Garze is the most common way. Garze has three airports: Kangding Airport, Daocheng Yading Airport and Garze Gesar Airport. At Xinnanmen Passenger Station in Chengdu, there are long-distance bus to Kangding County, Garze County and Daocheng County. At Chadianzi Bus Station, there are buses to Danba County.

Things to Do in Garze

Garze includes a wide range of topography, including virgin forests, snow-capped mountains, pastures, alpine lakes, hot springs, and waterfalls. It is an important part of Tibetan areas in China. So it is an ideal place to experience the Tibetan way of life and their folk customs. All kinds of scenic spots and cultural relics are important tourism resources in the prefecture. 

Top Attractions in Garze

Economy of Garze

In 2018, the prefecture's GDP reached 29.12 billion yuan, an increase of 9.3%. Among them, the added value of the primary industry is 6.547 billion yuan, an increase of 3.5%; the added value of the secondary industry is 12.178 billion yuan, an increase of 14.9%; the added value of the tertiary industry is 10.395 billion yuan, an increase of 6.9%. The three industries contributed 0.8, 5.9 and 2.6 percentage points to GDP growth respectively, and the contribution rates of the added value of the three industries to GDP growth were 9.1%, 63.0% and 27.9% respectively. The per capita GDP reached 24446 yuan, an increase of 2349 yuan or 8.5% over the previous year. The state-owned economic investment in the whole Prefecture is 27.293 billion yuan, up 24.4% year on year, accounting for 62% of the total social investment; the investment of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan businessmen is 53 million yuan, up 401.9% year on year, accounting for 0.1% of the total social investment. Private investment reached 5.075 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.9%, accounting for 12% of the total social investment.

Natural Resources of Garze

Grassland resources

The natural grassland area of Garze Prefecture accounts for 61.7% of the total area, which is an important part of the pastoral area in Northwest Sichuan.

Water resources

Garze Prefecture is located in the headwaters of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River. The Jinsha River, Yalong River and Dadu River, the important main stream in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, flow through 18 counties in the prefecture. The drainage area is 146100 square kilometers, accounting for 96% of the administrative area of the whole Prefecture and 8.5% of the Yangtze River. The total amount of water resources is 139.783 billion cubic meters, including 88.18 billion cubic meters of available water resources and 41.19 million kilowatts of theoretical reserves of water energy, accounting for 29% of the province.

Mineral resources

There are 74 kinds of minerals found in Garze Prefecture, 1581 solid ore producing areas and 512 ore spots. Ferrous metals are mainly iron ores, followed by ferromanganese, manganese, chromite and ilmenite, with 90 mineral sites. There are nine kinds of nonferrous metals known, such as copper, lead, zinc, nickel, tungsten, tin, mercury, antimony, molybdenum and so on. Rare metals and dispersed elements are important national metallogenic areas, among which granitic pegmatite type lithium, beryllium, niobium and tantalum deposits occupy the leading position in the prefecture and 56 ore producing areas have been found. Precious metals are large paragenetic platinum (palladium) deposits, super large silver deposits, and placer gold and rock gold deposits with large reserves.

Animal and plant resources

There are more than 30 kinds of rare animals such as giant panda and golden monkey, top-grade animal medicines such as musk, antler and bear gall, plant medicines such as Cordyceps and Fritillaria, rare skin pieces such as otter skin, agricultural and sideline products such as Tricholoma matsutake, white fungus, pepper, walnut and snow mountain soybean, all of which are green food produced in natural pastures with good ecological environment. The forest area of the whole prefecture accounts for 20% of the total forest area of Sichuan Province.

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