Gannan Xiahe Hot Spring Gansu

Gannan Xiahe Hot Spring Gansu is a geothermal facility in Xiahe County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu Province, a community defined by the presence of Labrang Monastery, one of the six great monasteries of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism and often described as the greatest Tibetan monastery outside Tibet itself, whose vast complex of prayer halls, debating courtyards, religious colleges, and gilded rooftops houses over 1,000 monks and preserves an extraordinary collection of Tibetan religious art, manuscripts, and ritual objects accumulated over the three centuries since the monastery's founding in 1709. The monastery's famous kora (circumambulation path) stretching over three kilometers around the sacred complex's whitewashed walls is walked by pilgrims from across the Tibetan Buddhist world in a continuous stream of devotion, while the vast golden meadows of the Sangke grassland outside town support traditional Tibetan nomadic pastoralism and horse festivals in a landscape of extraordinary highland spiritual and scenic beauty. The bicarbonate-calcium geothermal spring waters here offer relaxation in one of China's most profoundly Tibetan Buddhist landscapes, where the golden rooftops of Labrang Monastery, the chanting of monks, and the incense-perfumed air of the Sangke grassland create an atmosphere of contemplative depth that gives even simple thermal bathing a spiritual dimension unique in the Chinese therapeutic spring tradition.