Yushu玉树

Yushu City, capital of the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, takes its Tibetan name from the word for "ruins." It sits deep on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at the heart of the Three Rivers Source region — the headwaters of the Yangtze, Yellow, and Mekong rivers all lie within its territory. It is also a major center of Kham (Kangba) culture, belonging, along with Ganzi in Sichuan and Chamdo in Tibet, to the traditional Kham region; horse racing, Guozhuang dance, and the epic of King Gesar remain part of daily life here. On April 14, 2010, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake destroyed most of Jiegu Town. Within three years a new town was rebuilt. Today Jiegu still carries the marks of its rebirth, with monastery prayer flags standing alongside newly built museums and hotels in this small plateau city.

Culture & Character

A stronghold of Khampa culture and a living cradle of the Gesar epic.

• Alongside Ganzi in Sichuan and Chamdo in Tibet, it belongs to the traditional Kham region; Khampa Tibetan dress, silver ornaments, and song-and-dance traditions remain fully intact
• Widely regarded as one of the key birthplaces of the Gesar epic, which bards still pass down to this day
• The Yushu Horse Racing Festival is the city's annual highlight, with racing, Tibetan wrestling, and song-and-dance performances
• In 2026 three museums open at once — the Yushu Ecology Museum, the Tibetan Folk Museum, and the Intangible Heritage Museum — offering a new window into local culture

Source of Three Rivers

The Yangtze, Yellow, and Mekong rivers all set out from this high plateau.

• Yushu lies at the core of the Three Rivers Source region; the upper Yangtze's Tongtian River and the headwaters of both the Yellow and Mekong lie within its borders
• The Three Rivers Source Monument on the bank of the Tongtian River is the landmark that gives real weight to the idea of "the source"
• Lebagou, southeast of Jiegu Town, means "beautiful valley" in Tibetan; its rock carvings and mani stones stretch for several kilometres
• With an average elevation above 4,200 metres across the prefecture, most sights are themselves part of the plateau's high-altitude ecology

Daily Life

A highland city that rebuilt itself from the ruins.

• After the April 14, 2010 earthquake, Jiangsu Province led the paired reconstruction effort, completing a new city in three years — one of the flagship cases of China's inter-regional reconstruction program
• Home to roughly 150,000 residents, 93% of them Tibetan, making it a genuinely Tibetan-majority city
• Major scenic areas, hotels, and transport hubs within the prefecture promote "all-oxygen tourism," installing oxygen-supply facilities to cope with the altitude
• Tourism and cultural entrepreneurship are still getting off the ground, with few coworking spaces or digital-nomad communities