Larung

Larung, commonly known as the Larung Gar Buddhist Academy, is a Tibetan Buddhist educational center located in Sertar County, Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, China. It is one of the largest and most influential Buddhist institutions in the Tibetan world. The academy was founded in 1980 by the late lama Jigme Phuntsok as a modest teaching center and expanded rapidly in the following decades, attracting thousands of monks and nuns from Tibet and beyond.

The site sits on a hillside and comprises numerous monasteries, temples, study halls, and thousands of wooden dwelling houses arranged along winding paths. The complex is widely recognized for its dense arrangement of red houses and its extensive network of religious buildings. The institution emphasizes traditional Buddhist philosophy, ritual arts, and monastic discipline, and functions as a center for scholarship and debate across several Buddhist lineages.

In the 2010s, authorities in China pursued campaigns to regulate religious education and urban planning in the region. From 2016 onward, reports and official statements described efforts to downsize and standardize the community, including demolitions of structures and relocations of residents. Estimates of the resident population varied over time, with tens of thousands commonly cited in media reports before the crackdown. Despite these pressures, Larung remains an active center of study, hosting monastic and lay students, scriptures, and religious programs under the supervision of regional religious and governmental authorities.