The majority of Tibet’s population of 1,890,000 is Tibetan. Tibet is so thinly populated that it averages out 1.68 persons per square kilometers. About 90% of the people live on farming and husbandry in the valleys of Tsangpo River (Brahmaputra) and its major tributaries Kyichu and Nuuang-chu. This area produces barely, wheat, peas and rape-seed, the great northern grassland which occupies a good half of Tibet is the home of nomads, yaks and sheep. The remaining population, approximately 10%, lives in towns earning their living mainly on business and handicraft, and many are factory workers and government officials.
Religion seems almost everything. Many live for the next life, rather than for the present. They accumulate deeds of virtue and pray for the final liberation-enlightenment. Lips and hands of the elders are never at still, either busied in murmuring of the six syllable mantra prayer Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum (Hail the Jewel in the Lotus) or in rotation of hand prayer wheels, or counting of the prayer beads. Pious pilgrims from every corner of Tibet day to day gather at Jokhang Temple and Barkor Street offering donations and praying heart and soul for their own Selves, for their friends, and for their friends’ friends. There are more than ten ethnic groups in Tibet including Tibetan, Mongolian, Nu, Drung, Moinba, Lhoba, Hui, Naxi, Deng and Sherpa. Among them, Tibetans are the dominant inhabitants of Tibet, accounting for 92.2 percent of the local population.
