Highways & Railroads

There were no public roads in old Tibet. Transportation of goods depended solely on man and animal power. During the 1950s PLA (People's Liberation Army) soldiers and local people built several highways connecting Lhasa and some other parts of China. Today, a 22,000-kilometer highway network radiating from Lhasa consisting of 15 trunk highways and 315 feeder roads has been formed. Most important are the Sichuan-Tibet, Qinghai-Tibet, Xinjiang-Tibet, Yunnan-Tibet and Sino-Nepalese highways. The Qinghai-Tibet Highway runs 2,122 kilometers from Xining to Lhasa. About 80 percent of the goods entering Tibet every year, nearly 500,000 tons, are carried on this road. The Sichuan-Tibet Highway covers the 2,413 kilometers from Chengdu to Lhasa. The Xinjiang-Tibet Highway, from Yecheng to Gartok, runs for 1,179 kilometers. The Yunnan-Tibet Highway, from Xiaguan to Markam, is 315 kilometers long, while the Chinese section of the Sino-Nepalese Highway stretches 736 kilometers from Lhasa to Zam entry/exit port.

The region has a Highway/Railway Joint Transport Company which handles every kind of business regarding passenger or goods transport in or out of Tibet. It has the capacity to handle containerized goods and less-than-freight traffic in quantities exceeding 1 million tons. In 1954 there were 54 automobiles for civil use region wide. Today there are 30,000.

Laid in the 1970s, the 1,080-kilometer oil pipeline from Golmud in Qinghai to Lhasa has a designed annual capacity of 250,000 tons and an actual annual load of 100,000-120,000 tons.

The first phase of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway was completed in the early 1980s and is now carrying both cargo and passengers. Running 846.9 kilometers from Xining, the capital city of Qinghai in the east to Golmud in western Qinghai, the line is built at more than 3,000 meters above sea level on average, rising to 3,700 meters at its highest. Construction of the second-phase project is in full swing. Investment involved is expected to reach 14 billion yuan. This is geared to put an end to the history when Tibet is not accessed by trains.

Civil Aviation

Lhasa has scheduled flights to Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, and Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. The distance by air from Lhasa to Chengdu is a little more than 1,100 kilometers. Each year more than 100,000 passengers fly this route along with 1,600 tons of freight. Renovations to Gonggar Airport outside of Lhasa now allow access to large passenger aircraft like Boeing 767. The 250-million-yuan Bamda Airport, the world's highest, was completed in September 1994.