Bomê County

Bomê County 波密县 • སྤོ་མེས་རྫོང་།
County
Location of Bomê County (red) within Nyingchi City (yellow) and the Tibet Autonomous Region
Bomê Location of the seat in Tibet Autonomous Region
Coordinates: 29°51′00″N 95°46′30″E / 29.850°N 95.775°E / 29.850; 95.775Coordinates: 29°51′00″N 95°46′30″E / 29.850°N 95.775°E / 29.850; 95.775
Country	People's Republic of China
Autonomous region	Tibet
Prefecture-level city	Nyingchi
Seat	Zhamo
Time zone	UTC+8 (China Standard)

Bomê County (Tibetan: སྤོ་མེས་རྫོང་།, Wylie: spo mes rdzong, Chinese: 波密县; pinyin: Bōmì Xiàn) is a county of Nyingchi Prefecture in the south-east of the Tibet Autonomous Region. Historically known as Pome or Poyul in western sources, and Bomai (sPo smad) or Boyü in Tibetan transliterations, it was the seat of a quasi-independent kingdom until the early 20th century when troops of the Dalai Lama's Lhasa government integrated it forcefully^{[citation needed]} into the central Tibetan realm.

The population was 27,169 in 1999.

History[]

The Kingdom of Powo, or sPo yul (“country of sPo”) was an offshoot of the ancient dynasty of the first Tibetan kings of the Yarlung Valley. Its inhabitants had a reputation as fearsome savages which meant most travellers kept clear of it and so it was one of the least known areas in the Tibetan traditional feudal establishment.

Its isolation was also enhanced by the belief by a great number of Tibetans that in its borders was one of the 'hidden lands' or beyul (Standard Tibetan: sbas-yul) referred to in the prophecies of Guru Rinpoche. Poba’s area of control far exceeded the boundaries of Bomê County. The kingdom acted as a protecting power for the streams of Tibetan pilgrims searching for this Promised Land in the East Himalayas from the Lopa tribes (Assam Himalayan tribes) from the mid-seventeenth century. Its power extended south over the Doshong La pass, to include the location of one of these earthly paradises called Padma bkod (written variously Pema köd, Pemakö and Pemako), literally 'Lotus Array', a region in the North-Eastern Province of Upper Siang of Arunachal Pradesh. Accounts of this terrestrial paradise influenced James Hilton's Shangri-La. A period of instability overtook the kingdom after Chinese incursions in 1905 and 1911. By 1931 the Lhasa government had expelled the last Ka gnam sde pa ('king') and established two garrisons.^{[citation needed]}

Settlements[]

• Zhamo (capital)

Transport[]

• China National Highway 318

External links[]

• (in Chinese) Official Website
• Pemako trekking holiday, India