Amdo - Present Demographics

Present Demographics

The Tibetan inhabitants of Amdo are referred to as Amdowa (Tibetan: ཨ་མདོ་པ།; amdo pa) as a regional distinction from the Tibetans of Kham (Khampa) and U-Tsang (Central Tibet), however, they are all considered ethnically Tibetan.

Today, ethnic Tibetans predominate in the western and southern parts of Amdo, which are now administered as various Tibetan, Tibetan-Qiang, or Mongol-Tibetan autonomous prefectures. The Han Chinese are a majority in the eastern part of Qinghai and the provincial capital Xining. While geographically small compared to the rest of Qinghai, this area has the largest population density, with the result that the Han Chinese outnumber other ethnicities in Qinghai generally. The northern part of Qinghai has a Mongol majority. For details on the demographics of various Tibetan entities in Amdo and Tibet generally, see Tibet - Major ethnic groups in Greater Tibet by region, 2000 census.

The majority of Amdo Tibetans live in the larger part of Qinghai Province, including the Mtsho byang (Tibetan: མཚོ་བྱང་།; Ch. Haibei) TAP, Mtsho lho (Tibetan: མཚོ་ལྷོ་།; Ch. Hainan) TAP, Rma lho (Tibetan: རྨ་ལྷོ་།; Ch. Huangnan) TAP, and Mgo log (Tibetan: མགོ་ལོག།; Ch. Guoluo) TAP, as well as in the Kan lho (Tibetan: ཀན་ལྷོ།; Ch. Gannan) TAP of the southwest Gansu province, and sections of the Rnga ba (Tibetan: རྔ་བ།; Ch. Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous prefecture of north-west Sichuan Province. Additionally, a great many Amdo Tibetans live within the Haidong (Tibetan: མཚོ་ཤར།; Wylie: mtsho shar) Prefecture of Qinghai which is located to the east of the Blue Lake (Tibetan: མཚོ་སྔོན།, Wylie: Mtsho sngon; Kokonor) and around Xining city, but they constitute only a minority (ca. 8.5%) of the total population there and so the region did not attain TAP status. The vast Haixi (Mstho nub) Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, to the west of the Blue Lake, also has a minority Tibetan population (ca. 10%), and only those Tibetans in the eastern parts of this Prefecture are Amdo inhabitants.

Mongols too have been long-term settlers in Amdo, arriving first during the time of Genghis Khan, but particularly in a series of settlement waves during the Ming period. Over the centuries, most of the Amdo Mongols have become highly Tibetanised and, superficially at least, it is now difficult to discern their original non-Tibetan ethnicity.