Tongren (Rebgong)

Tongren, known to Tibetans as Rebgong, is the capital of the Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in eastern Qinghai and was upgraded from a county to a county-level city in 2020. Its economy is unusual for a Tibetan-area town in being led by culture: more than 24,000 residents — about a quarter of the population — work in the Regong arts industry across nearly 400 cultural enterprises, and cultural-tourism revenue reached about 590 million yuan in 2023, alongside traditional barley farming, yak and sheep herding and a growing eco-tourism trade. There is no university in the city; local higher study is limited to vocational and teacher-training institutions, and students head to Xining for Qinghai University, Qinghai Normal University or Qinghai Minzu University, about 160 km to the north. Tongren is world-famous as the birthplace of Regong art — thangka painting, appliqué embroidery, barbola and clay sculpture — which UNESCO inscribed on its intangible cultural heritage list in 2009, and in 2025 the city was certified as the world's largest thangka art capital. Visitors come for the monastery cluster of Longwu, Wutun, Guomari and Nianduhu, and for the midsummer Lurol festival, when villages along the Longwu valley perform days of drum dances.