Southwest China in the context of "Tibetans"

The Indian plate (or India plate) is a minor tectonic plate straddling the equator in the Eastern Hemisphere. Originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwana, the Indian plate broke away from the other fragments of Gondwana 100 million years ago and began moving north, carrying Insular India with it. It was once fused with the adjacent Australian plate to form a single Indo-Australian plate, but recent studies suggest that India and Australia may have been separate plates for at least 3 million years. The Indian plate includes most of modern South Asia (the Indian subcontinent) and a portion of the basin under the Indian Ocean, including parts of South China, Indonesian islands, and extending up to but not including Ladakh, Kohistan, and Balochistan in Pakistan.

The Red River or the Hong River (traditional Chinese: 紅河; simplified Chinese: 红河; pinyin: Hóng Hé; Vietnamese: Sông Hồng; Chữ Nôm: 瀧紅), also known as the Sông Cái (lit. "Main River"; Chữ Nôm: 瀧丐) in Vietnamese and the Yuan River (元江, Yuán Jiāng) in Chinese, is a 1,149-kilometer (714 mi)-long river that flows from Yunnan in Southwest China through northern Vietnam to the Gulf of Tonkin. According to C. Michael Hogan, the associated Red River Fault was instrumental in forming the entire South China Sea at least as early as 37 million years before present. The name red and southern position in China are associated in traditional cardinal directions. The river is relatively shallow, and carries a lot of reddish silt along its way, appearing red brown in colour.

Tibetans (Tibetan: བོད་པ་, Wylie: bod pa, THL: bö pa) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Tibet. Their current population is estimated to be around 7.7 million. In addition to the majority living in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, significant numbers of Tibetans live in the Chinese provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan, as well as in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bhutan.

The Tibetic languages are a branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family. The traditional or mythological explanation of the Tibetan people's origin is that they are the descendants of the human Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa and rock ogress Ma Drag Sinmo. It is thought that most of the Tibeto-Burman speakers in southwest China, including Tibetans, are direct descendants from the ancient Qiang people.

Gandaki Province (Nepali: गण्डकी प्रदेश, romanized: Gaṇḍakī pradēśa [ɡʌɳɖʌki]) Listen), is one of the seven federal provinces established by the current constitution of Nepal which was promulgated on 20 September 2015. Pokhara is the province's capital city. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region in Southwest China to the north, Bagmati Province to the east, Karnali Province to the west, and Lumbini Province and Bihar of India to the south. The total area of the province is 21,504 km - constituting 14.57% of Nepal's total area. According to the latest census, the population of the province was 2,479,745. The newly elected Provincial Assembly adopted Gandaki Province as the permanent name by replacing its initial name Province No. 4 on 27 April 2023. Surendra Raj Pandey is the present chief minister of Gandaki Province.

The Mekong or Mekong River (UK: /miːˈkɒŋ/ mee-KONG, US: /ˌmeɪˈkɔːŋ/ may-KAWNG) is a transboundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's twelfth-longest river and the third-longest in Asia with an estimated length of 4,909 km (3,050 mi) and a drainage area of 795,000 km (307,000 sq mi), discharging 475 km (114 cu mi) of water annually. From its headwaters in the Tibetan Plateau, the river runs through Southwest China (where it is officially called the Lancang River), Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and southern Vietnam. The extreme seasonal variations in flow and the presence of rapids and waterfalls in the Mekong make navigation difficult, though the river remains a major trade route between Tibet and Southeast Asia. The construction of hydroelectric dams along the Mekong in the 2000s through the 2020s has caused serious problems for the river's ecosystem, including the exacerbation of drought.

Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of Camellia sinensis, an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which originated in the borderlands of south-western China, north-east India and northern Myanmar. Tea is also made, but rarely, from the leaves of Camellia taliensis and Camellia formosensis. After plain water, tea is the most widely consumed drink in the world. There are many types of tea; some have a cooling, slightly bitter, and astringent flavour, while others have profiles that include sweet, nutty, floral, or grassy notes. Tea has a stimulating effect in humans, primarily due to its caffeine content.

An early credible record of tea drinking dates to the third century AD, in a medical text written by Chinese physician Hua Tuo. It was popularised as a recreational drink during the Chinese Tang dynasty, and tea drinking spread to other East Asian countries. Portuguese priests and merchants introduced it to Europe during the 16th century. During the 17th century, drinking tea became fashionable among the British, who later started to plant tea on a large scale in India, where it had previously been used only as a medicine.

The Pinaceae, or pine family, are conifer trees or shrubs, including many of the well-known conifers of commercial importance such as cedars, firs, hemlocks, larches, pines and spruces. The family is included in the order Pinales, formerly known as Coniferales. Pinaceae have distinctive cones with woody scales bearing typically two ovules, and are supported as monophyletic by both morphological trait and genetic analysis. They are the largest extant conifer family in species diversity, with between 220 and 250 species (depending on taxonomic opinion) in 11 genera, and the second-largest (after Cupressaceae) in geographical range, found in most of the Northern Hemisphere, with the majority of the species in temperate climates, but ranging from subarctic to tropical. The family often forms the dominant component of boreal, coastal, and montane forests. One species, Pinus merkusii, grows just south of the equator in Southeast Asia. Major centres of diversity are found in the mountains of southwest China, Mexico, central Japan, and California.