Turquoise Tibetan pendants depicting Buddha and Tara

Tibet (Tibetan: བོད་, Bids) is a geographical area and a former independent state on the Tibetan plateau. It has historically been a peculiar people, culture, language and two religions: the Bon and Tibetan Buddhism. Since the invasion of Tibet in 1950-51 belongs to the People's Republic of China and is politically divided over a number of Chinese provinces, including the whole of Tibet Autonomous Region and parts of Sichuan and Qinghai. Cultural Ladakh and Sikkim also in India, Bhutan and some parts of Nepal to Tibet counted. The Tibet Autonomous Region is bordered to the south and west by Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh. From north to east it borders the provinces of Sinkiang (Turkestan), Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan. Until 1950, when the People's Liberation Army invaded Tibet, Tibet was an independent country with a theocratic government. In the corners of Tibet was the power in the hands of local warlords. For 1950 the main religious and political leader was the fourteenth Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso. In 1959 he fled to India, where he headed the government in exile until the 2000 democratic reforms.