A living connection to where we come from.

For the next generation

Tibet Archive is an independent project for Tibetan youth and families to explore geography, language, and memory together. We are beginning with Lhasa and a small catalogue of material held by established archives.

Each collection keeps its own identity. A link to a museum or library does not imply a partnership or endorsement.

Collection status · Pilot

A beginning, made visible.

Explore records from the Tibet Oral History Project, Library of Congress, and Minnesota Historical Society. Five editorial introductions connect testimony to places. These records are not all unique people; reviewed bilingual editions are still to come.

We have not yet committed language reviewers or partner archives. Private contribution receipt must be verified before sending is enabled.

How to read the map

The map brings together records from different times. Its contemporary geographic basemap is supplied by OpenFreeMap ↗ (external site, opens in a new tab) using OpenStreetMap ↗ (external site, opens in a new tab) data. It is not a reconstruction of historical Tibet.

Ü-Tsang, Kham, Amdo, and Ngari are browsing categories. The shaded areas are an illustrative navigation guide adapted from our earlier atlas drawing, not authoritative boundaries. A marker indicates an approximate city location, not someone’s home, birthplace, or the site of a particular photograph.

The 1906 Royal Geographical Society map can be viewed alongside the geographic map. It is an outsider’s historical document, not a Tibetan-authored map or a georeferenced overlay. The Oxford Lhasa map remains linked at its source. Modern buildings do not establish historical buildings.

If the map cannot load, the searchable place list provides the same records. Region and search filters are stored in the page URL.

Language and original voices

Language availability is shown per record. Original Tibetan audio and English transcripts may exist at a source while Tibetan transcripts are unavailable. A sourced Tibetan place label is not a claim that the site is bilingual or that a translation has been reviewed.

Original testimony, catalogue notes, and future contributed stories remain distinct. Editorial introductions are identified as summaries, not testimony or reviewed translations.

Discovery and preservation

Recordings stream from their source hosts. Reusable images are shown with their individual credits and licenses. The local research edition reads extracted PDF text; full transcript republication is not enabled on the public deployment. Our public catalogue is portable JSON with stable identifiers, source links, dates, rights notes, and checksums for any future authorized original files.

Download the interview catalogue →