The Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) or Xizang Autonomous Region, called Tibet or Xizang for short (Chinese: 西藏; pinyin: Xīzàng; literally: "Western Tsang"; Mandarin: [ɕí.tsâŋ]; Tibetan: བོད་, Wylie: Bod, ZYPY: Poi, IPA: [pʰø̀ʔ]), is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China (PRC). It was formally established in 1965 to replace the Tibet Area, an administrative division the PRC inherited from the Republic of China (ROC), about 5 years after the dismissal of the Kashag by the PRC following the 1959 Tibetan uprising, and about 13 years from the Tibet's incorporation into the PRC in 1951.

The current borders of Tibet were generally established in the eighteenth century^[4] and include about half of ethno-cultural Tibet. The Tibet Autonomous Region is the second-largest province-level division of China by area, spanning over 1,200,000 km² (460,000 sq mi), after Xinjiang, and mostly due to its harsh and rugged terrain, is the least densely populated provincial-level division of the PRC.