The "Holy Garze into Beijing, Sichuan's Garze Tibetan Areas Cultural Tourism Week" is launched in the Cultural Palace of Nationalities, Beijing, Jun. 5 and will last for one week. [Photo/China Tibet Online]

Beijing audience will be much more familiar with the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province because of the "Holy Garze into Beijing, Sichuan's Garze Tibetan Areas Cultural Tourism Week" which was launched in the Cultural Palace of Nationalities, Beijing, Jun. 5 and it will last for one week.

The cultural tourism week presents people numerous of photos and explanatory notes to introduce Garze, a beautiful place located in western Sichuan Province and southeast of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. It is populated by 43 nationalities and has a population of 1.12 million. Renowned as the "last Shangri-La", Garze is the first special minority nationalities autonomous prefecture in China, covering 153 thousand square kilometers, and including 18 counties as well as 325 townships.

Garze possesses a beautiful ecological environment and rich natural resources. About 97.1 percent of the state's land is covered by natural pasture and forest, therefore, the place is an important water conservation in the upper Yangtze River and the first line of ecological barrier. Garze is one of the places in the world that owns most complete natural ecology, climate perpendicular band spectrum and vertical distribution of animal and plant resources. It is rich in ecological resources, cultural tourism resources, water power resources, mineral resources, and biological resources. It owns a prominent comparative advantage, broad prospects for development, and outstanding advantage of backwardness in the economic field.

Garze boasts many tourist attractions of world level, such as Gongkar Snow Mountain, Daocheng Yading, and Conch Gully. It is also a region rich in cultural resources, some of which are world-renowned, including the Love Song in Tardo, King Gesar, and ancient books in Derge Gonchen Monastery. It enjoys the fame as the "snow area cultural treasure" and "ocean of song and dance".

In recent years, the people's government of Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture has established the development strategy focusing on ecology, industry, science and education, rule of law as well as moral construction. In 2013, the state had achieved a regional GDP totaled 20.1 billion yuan (about 3.2 billion U.S. dollars), 21,418 yuan (about 3429 U.S. dollars) of urban per capita disposable income, and 5,435 yuan (about 870 U.S. dollars)of per capita net income of farmers.