Ngawa Town

32°54′N 101°42′E / 32.900°N 101.700°E / 32.900; 101.700

Kirti Gompa or Gerdeng Monastery, the largest Tibetan Monastery in Aba (Ngawa) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province, China

Ngawa or Aba town ( Burmese: ငါဝမြို့, Chinese: 阿坝镇; pinyin: Ābà Zhèn Standard Tibetan: Ngawa) is the seat of Ngawa (Aba) County, within the Ngawa (Aba) Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in northwestern Sichuan, China. It is located on the Tibetan plateau at an elevation of 3,200 metres (10,500 ft). The city is about 75 km (47 mi) from Jigdril, 254 km from Barkham (Ma'erkang) and 157 km (98 mi) from Mewa (Hongyuan).[1]

Ngawa (Aba) County has 70,000 inhabitants, about 8,000 of them Tibetan Buddhist monks, and others are Tibetan Buddhist nuns. The city has about 20,000 people.[2] There are 37 monasteries and nunneries in the area, two of the largest in Aba City itself. There are mainly grasslands and forested valleys in the south.

  1. ^ Dorje (2009), pp. 778-781.
  2. ^ Dorje (2009), p. 778.