Cities · Lhasa ·
Neighbourhoods of Lhasa
A practical district-by-district guide — what each neighbourhood feels like, where to eat, how to get around, and what to avoid.
6 districts covered
八廓街
Barkhor Quarter
The sacred inner circuit of old Lhasa — a cobblestone pilgrim route surrounding the Jokhang Temple, lined with incense vendors, prayer-wheel stalls, and Tibetan homes, with a religious intensity unlike anywhere else in China.
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布达拉宫广场
Potala Square
The civic heart of modern Lhasa — a vast open square facing the Potala Palace, with the Red Hill rising behind, government buildings flanking the sides, and the architectural tension between the ancient palace above and the post-1950 planned civic space below.
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哲蚌寺
Drepung Monastery Area
The western hills above Lhasa where the largest monastery in Tibet sits — a vast complex of white-walled buildings housing several thousand monks, with a quieter and more authentically monastic character than the touristed Jokhang.
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色拉寺
Sera Monastery Area
Lhasa's northern monastery, famous for its afternoon debate sessions — a working monastery with monks engaged in formal dialectical debate in the outdoor courtyard, one of the most accessible and vivid monastic practices visible to visitors.
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拉萨河南岸
Lhasa River South Bank
The broad alluvial plain south of the Lhasa River — new urban development, the Lhasa airport road corridor, and the expanding outer city where Han immigration and infrastructure investment are most visible.
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罗布林卡
Norbulingka Summer Palace
The Dalai Lamas' summer residence west of central Lhasa — a series of palaces set within a walled Tibetan garden park, the most used public park in Lhasa, and the site where the 14th Dalai Lama began his flight into exile in 1959.
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