CHIANG-TZU

also called Chi-yang-tse, Pinyin Jiangzu, or Jiyangze, Tibetan Gyangz town in the southern part of the Tibetan autonomous ch' (region), China. It is situated on the Nien-ch'u River some 45 miles (70 km) southeast of Jih-k'a-tse and about halfway between Lhasa, capital of Tibet, and the border town of Ya-tung between the frontiers with India and the Himalayan state of Bhutan. Chiang-tzu is an important route centre for traffic from Lhasa to India, Bhutan, the western Tibetan region, and Ladakh, a region in eastern Jammu and Kashmir. Under the Ch'ing dynasty (1644-1911) Chiang-tzu was a frontier defense post with a small Chinese garrison and a much larger Tibetan guard force. Its importance was, however, largely commercial. It was a great marketplace to which caravans from the interior of Tibet brought gold, salt, musk, wool, and hides, which were bartered with Indian and Nepalese merchants for tea, tobacco, sugar, cloth, and metal goods. The town's importance as the chief market of south-central Tibet was increased when, following the Lhasa Treaty of 1904 between Tibet and the United Kingdom and its modification by the Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1906, it was opened to foreign trade and a British resident was stationed there. With the closing by China of the border between the Tibetan autonomous ch' and adjacent states, it lost some of its importance as a centre of seasonal trade. Pop. (mid-1980s est.) 10,000-50,000.