Qonggyai County

Qonggyai County or Chongye County, (Tibetan: འཕྱོངས་རྒྱས་རྫོང་, THL: Chonggyé dzong , Chinese: 琼结县; pinyin: Qióngjié xiàn) is a county of Lhoka Prefecture in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

History

Qonggyai contains the Valley of the Kings, a series of graveyard tumuli, approximately 27 kilometres (17 mi) south of Tsetang, Tibet, near the town of Chongye or Qonggyai on Mure Mountain. The site possesses eight large mounds of earth resembling natural hills that are believed to contain eight to ten buried Tibetan kings.

Other sources, however, have indicated that there are actually nine mounds rather than eight or ten. The kings believed to be buried at the site include Songtsän Gampo (the founder of the Tibetan Empire), Mangsong Mangtsen, Tridu Songtsen, Gyangtsa Laban, Me Agtsom, Trisong Detsen, Muné Tsenpo and Ralpacan.

Geography and climate

Qonggyai County is located in the middle of the Brahmaputra River valley and covers an area of 1030 square km, with 2.8 million mu of arable land, an area of 1.3 million mu of grassland, with a forest area of 0.7 million mu. The county had a total population of 20,000 people in 2003.