Amdo

Amdo (Tibetan: ཨ་མདོ་, Wylie: a mdo [ʔam˥˥.to˥˥]; Chinese: 安多; pinyin: Ānduō), also known as Domey (Tibetan: མདོ་སྨད་), is one of the three traditional Tibetan regions.^[1] It 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.

Amdo became a part of the Tibetan Empire until the 9th century and was ruled by a local Tibetan theocracy called Tsongkha from the 10th century to the 12th century. In the 13th century Mongol forces conquered the area which led to the beginning of a priest and patron relationship. From the 14th century to the 16th century, the Ming Dynasty controlled some border areas of Amdo while Mongol presence remained significant. In the 1720s the Yongzheng Emperor of Qing dynasty seized Amdo from the Dzungars and began forming the modern boundaries of Qinghai. He allowed most of the area to be administered by a series of local Tibetan rulers associated with the Ü-Tsang government through monastery systems but not directly governed by the Dalai Lama's Ganden Phodrang.^[2] From 1917 parts of Amdo were occupied by warlords of the Ma clique, who joined the Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party) in 1928. By 1952, Chinese Communist Party forces had defeated both the Kuomintang and Tibetan forces, solidifying their hold on the area roughly by 1958.

Amdo is the home of many important Tibetan Buddhism spiritual leaders, 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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