The majority of Tibet's population of 1,890,000 are Tibetans. Tibet is so thinly populated that it averages out 1.68 persons per square kilometer. About 90% of the people live on farming and husbandry. Farmers live in the valleys of Tsang River (Brahmapotra) and its major tributaries Kyichu and Nyuangchu. This area produces barley, wheat, peas and rape-seed. The great northern grassland which occupied a good half of Tibet is the home of nomads, yaks and sheep. Nomads have no fixed abodes, and keep roaming along fine pastures together with all their belongings-tents and livestock. The remaining population, approximately 10%, live in towns, earning their living mainly on business and handcraft, and many are factory workers and government officials.

Ideology of people in this land differs greatly from any other nationality both at home in China and in the world. Region seems almost everything. Many live for the next life, rather than for the present. They accumulate deeds of virtue and pray for the final liberation-enlightenment. Lips and hands of the elders are never at still, either busied in murmuring of the six-syllable mantric prayer Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum (Hail the Jewel in the Lotus) or in rotation of hand prayer wheels, or counting of the prayer beads. Pious pilgrims from every corner of Tibet day to day gather at Jokhang Temple and Bharkhor Street offering their donations and praying heart and soul for their own selves, for their friend, and for their friends’friends.

Frequent visitors to Tibet can make out folks from different regions judging by costumes and dialects. Folks from agricultural regions dress in woolen home-woven gowns, and those from the grassland clad in sheepskin. Men folk from Chamdo wear huge tassels of black or red silk which were used in the old days for protection in fight, while the Lhasa residents are more stylish and modern. Dialects in Tibet are in variety, but mainly can be categorized into four: Lhasa, Tsang (Shigatse and Gyantse), Chamdo and Amdo.