The Potala Palace

This ancient architectural complex is considered a model of Tibetan architecture. Located on the Red Hill in Lhasa, Tibet, it is 3,700 meters above sea level and covers an area of over 360,000 square meters, measuring 360 meters from east to west and 270 meters from south to north. The palace has 13 stories, and is 117 meters high.

In 641, Songtsan Gambo, ruler of the Tubo Kingdom, had the Potala Palace built for Princess Wencheng of the Tang Dynasty, whom he was soon to marry. This structure was later burned to the ground during a war and was rebuilt in the 17^th century by the Fifth Dalai Lama. Repeated repairs and expansions until 1645 finally brought the palace to its present scale. Over the past three centuries, the palace gradually became a place where the Dalai Lama lived and worked and a place for keeping the remains of successive Dalai Lama.The Jokhang Monastery, an example of the earliest architecture in Tibet, can claim to be the center around which the city of Lhasa developed. The legend goes that Princess Wencheng, Tibetan King Songtsen Gampo's Chinese wife in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), had the monastery built by filling up the lake Wothang with the help of a sacred goat. A willow said to have been planted by Princess Wencheng and Songtsen Gampo themselves still grows outside the gate of the monastery.