Qinghai-Tibet Railway

Before the year of 2001, Tibet is the only place without a railway. Constructing a railway leading to Tibet is not only the expectation of the 2.4 million Tibetan people, but also the desire of the people of all nationalities of the whole country.

And Thanks to the government, Qinghai-Tibet Railway started to build in June 2001 and is expected to be completed by 2007.

Qinghai-Tibet railway construction has come into the wholly-advanced stage in 2004, and it is planed to invest 6,200 million RMB in this year, to complete railing 340 km and the main body of the project will be totally finished.

The number of travelers to southwest China's Tibetan Autonomous Region, known as the "roof of the world," is expected to rise by 15-20 percent annually when the Qinghai-Tibet Railway goes into operation in 2007.

The 1,956-km Qinghai-Tibet railway line, which will run from Xining, capital of northwest Qinghai Province, to Lhasa, Tibetan capital, will give a big impetus to the development of tourism in Tibet.

The section from Xining to Golmud City in Qinghai was completed in 1984. Construction of the 1,118-km section connecting Golmud with Lhasa began in June 2001 and is expected to be completed by 2007.

It is also estimated that 1.8 million people will travel to and out of Tibet in 2010, 630,000 of which will make the trip by train on the Qinghai-Tibet line, the first railway stretching to Tibet.

Tibet accepted 930,000 tourists in 2003, which arrived in the region by air and bus.

The long and tiring journey by buses and expensive trips by air have greatly contained arrivals of tourists to Tibet, posing a big bottleneck for local tourism development and the regional economic growth as a whole.

The operation of the railway line will not only encourage an influx of tourists, but also make it much more convenient for Tibetans to travel outside of the region.