The Tibetan diaspora is the exile of Tibetan people from Tibet, their land of origin, to other nation states to live as immigrants and refugees in communities. The diaspora of Tibetan people began in the early 1950s, peaked after the 1959 Tibetan uprising, and continues.
Tibetan emigration has four separate stages. The first stage occurred when Tibetans began escaping from Kham in the early and mid 1950's, and moving to India. The internal migration of masses of Tibetans from Amdo and Kham to Lhasa and central Tibet also occurred at this time, before the 1959 Tibetan uprising in Lhasa. The second stage followed the March 1959 escape by the 14th Dalai Lama from Lhasa to Himachal Pradesh, India, before he eventually settled in Dharamsala. The third stage occurred in the 1980s, when China's Central Government partially eased their brutality within Tibet, and opened Tibet to foreigners. The fourth stage began in 1996, after the kidnapping of the 11th Panchen Lama and the reopening of China's forced "Political Re-education" programs, and it continues today.