Why is Lhasa called Sunlight City?

Lhasa, known in Tibetan as "the place where gods and buddhas live", is a famous historical city in Tibet and also the political and cultural center of Tibet. As a famous plateau city, Lhasa is also called "Sunlight City" because of its unique sunshine concern.

Lhasa has a long sunshine time, with an average of 8 hours 15 minutes per day. It is almost half that of other areas at the same latitude and twice that of Sichuan Basin. Tibet's high altitude makes it closer to the sun than other cities. The higher the altitude, the thinner the atmosphere and the smaller the air density. In addition, there is little pollution in Lhasa, and the weather is fine all year round, so Lhasa has sunshine all year round.

Why is Lhasa called Sunlight City?

Although the sunshine is long, there is also a lot of rain in Lhasa, mostly between 8 pm and 8 am the next day. The sun was still shining after the rain, and the weather was fine the next day. The sunshine is so abundant that it is not an exaggeration to call Lhasa "Sunshine City". Sunlight City is another name for Lhasa. "Sunshine City" has a lot of rain. The annual rainfall is 453.9 mm, and the annual rainfall days are 87.8 days, which is more than that of southern Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, northern Hebei, Jilin and western Liaoning in the eastern region, but the sunshine time is longer.

Lhasa is located on the north bank of Lhasa River, a tributary of Yarlung Zangbo River, with an altitude of 3,650 meters. After more than 40 years of construction, the urban area of Lhasa has grown to about 50 square kilometers (15 times that of the old Lhasa), and the urban population has grown to123,200 in 1990, with Tibetans as the main residents.

Due to the strong sunshine and long sunshine time in Lhasa, the annual total solar radiation is as high as 846 kilojoules (202.4 kilocalories). It is not only 70- 150% more than that in the eastern part of the same latitude, but also more than that in the arid area of northwest China.