The Litang Horse Festival is a summer horse festival held in Litang County, Sichuan. Khampas from all over the Tibetan Plateau come to trade, celebrate and ride. Khampas are nomads that are Tibetan and are usually herders. The festival is held generally the first week in August, and it usually runs from August 1 to August 7. During the festival horsemanship and horse races are held upon the Tibetan Ponies. These small and fast horses are raced and shown to see who owns the best horse. The horse festival is significant because it helps to establish socio-economic hierarchy in Khampas who participate. A lot of honor and prestige is placed on who owns the best horse. During the 1950s, the region around Litang was one of the main areas of Tibetan armed resistance to the presence of the PRC's People's Liberation Army (PLA). A resistance group called "Four Rivers, Six Ranges" was active in the area. In 1956 the monastery in Litang was bombed by the PLA. Litang is located at an altitude of 4,014 metres. It is on open grassland and surrounded by snow-capped mountains and is about 400 meters higher than Lhasa, making it one of the highest towns in the world. In August, 2007, the horse-racing festival at Litang was the scene of an impromptu anti-government political speech by Runggye Adak, which was followed by protests calling for his release. A crackdown officially described as "patriotic education campaign" followed in autumn of 2007, including several politically motivated arrests and attempts to force local Tibetans to denounce the Dalai Lama.

• published: 03 Oct 2013
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