Potala Palace on the top of the Potala Hill is the symbol of Lhasa. It was built in the seventh century by King Songtsan Cambo for his bride, the Han nationality Princess Wen Cheng. It has 999 rooms, plus the original red tower, one thousand rooms in all. It has been repaired and renovated many times till its present scale. Covering an area of 41 hectares, its stone-and -wood main building has 13 stories, measuring 117 meters in height.

The palace has towering buildings with golden roofs and a group of huge castle palaces, which are divided into white and red ones for the color of their walls. The White Place used to be a place where the living Buddha, Dalai, Tibet's religious leader, handled government affairs and lived. The red one consists of the Hall of the Buddha, the Scripture Hall and the Memorial Hall, each with a dozen or scores of rooms. The Hall of the Buddha houses gold-traced portraits of Sakyamuni and deceased Dalai Lamas; the Scripture Hall keeps in it a large number of early copies of Buddhist sutras; and the Memorial Hall contains stupas of the 13 late Dalai Lamas.

Potala Palace is also a world of murals, which are painted in hundreds of halls and corridors. It is a huge treasure house for materials and articles of Tibetan history, religion, culture and arts.

Entry fee: 45 yuan