The Potala Palace by extrajoce
The Potala Palace is an administrative, religious and political complex, which was built on the Red Mountain in the center of the Lhasa valley, at an altitude of 3700 meters. It is made of 13 stories, the most visible distinction being between the White Palace and the Red Palace where the Dalai Lamas lived. There are some 1,000 rooms!The building of the palace was begun in the VIIth century by King Songtsan Gambo to welcome his bride Weng Cheng, a Han Princess of the Tang Dynasty. In 1645, reconstruction and expansion of the Palace were carried out until it reached the present scale. The 5th Dalai Lama began living there in 1653 and it became Tibet's political religious center.