Amdo

Amdo (Tibetan: ཨ༌མདོ [ʔam˥˥.to˥˥]; Chinese: 安多; pinyin: Ānduō [antwó]) is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being U-Tsang in the west and Kham in the east. Ngari (including former Guge kingdom) in the north-west was incorporated into Ü-Tsang. Amdo is also the birthplace of the 14th Dalai Lama. Amdo encompasses a large area from the Machu (Yellow River) to the Drichu (Yangtze).^{[note 1]} Amdo is mostly coterminous with China's present-day Qinghai province, but also includes small portions of Sichuan and Gansu provinces.

Historically, culturally, and ethnically a part of Tibet, Amdo was from the mid-18th century and after administered by a series of local Tibetan rulers. The Dalai Lamas have not directly governed the area since that time.^[1]

From 1917 to 1928, much of Amdo was occupied intermittently by the Hui Muslim warlords of the Ma clique. In 1928, the Ma Clique joined the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party), and during the period from 1928 to 1949, much of Amdo was gradually assimilated into the Qinghai province (and part of Gansu province) of the Kuomintang Republic of China. By 1952, Chinese Communist Party forces had defeated both the Kuomintang and the Tibetan forces and annexed the region, solidifying their hold on the area roughly by 1958. Tibetan guerrilla forces in Amdo emerged in 1956 and continued operating through the 1959 Tibetan uprising until 1962, fighting the People's Liberation Army and harsh Chinese land reform policies.

Amdo is the home of many important Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leaders and of lamas, monks, nuns, and scholars, including the 14th Dalai Lama, the 10th Panchen Lama Choekyi Gyaltsen, and the great Gelug school reformer Je Tsongkhapa.

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