Cities · China in Figures

Lhasa in figures

Tibet’s capital and a high-altitude centre for administration, tourism, services, construction and plateau transport.

GDP · 2025

0.11

trillion yuanLhasa statistics source ↗

Municipality-wide GDP.

Resident population · 2025

0.88

million peopleLhasa statistics source ↗

Year-end resident population across the stated municipal scope.

Administrative area · 2024

29,640

sq kmLhasa administrative area source ↗

Administrative territory, not built-up area.

City profile

Economy, population and urban systems

Each value keeps its own unit. Indexed bars provide a visual summary only and are not direct unit comparisons.

Latest official values

Source: Lhasa statistics source ↗ · Lhasa administrative area source ↗ · Official Lhasa statistical releases and administrative-area sources.chinainfigures.com

Urbanisation

73.8 percentLhasa statistics source ↗

Official resident-population classification.

GDP per resident

124,018 yuan per personLhasa statistics source ↗

Official municipality-wide value.

Services share

53.7 percentLhasa statistics source ↗

Tertiary-industry share of GDP.

Population

Which Lhasa?

Resident population and urbanisation use the official 2025 statistical communique for the full municipality.

Area

Administrative territory

The official natural-resources release gives 29,640 sq km for the full municipal territory; this is vastly larger than the built-up urban area.

Economy and systems

A city in context

GDP, population, urbanisation, GDP per capita and industry structure use the official 2025 statistical communique. Lhasa is Tibet’s principal rail, aviation and road hub and the main gateway for plateau tourism and administration.

International scale check

Compared with Bismarck

Selected for similar economic scale: Bismarck, United States.

Not a like-for-like rank

Bismarck MSA GDP (about US$12.6B, 2023) is close in scale to Lhasa municipality GDP after indicative USD conversion (about US$15.7B).

Lhasa is a vast high-altitude regional-capital municipality; Bismarck uses a smaller multi-county U.S. MSA boundary. Area and density are not like-for-like.

This page

Lhasa

Chinese municipality-wide administrative scope

Overseas peer

Bismarck

Bismarck MSA

At least GDP, population and area; density is derived from population ÷ area.
Metric	Lhasa	Bismarck
Gross product	0.11trillion yuan· 2025≈ US$16B (Indicative conversion only (≈ CNY 6.97 per USD))Lhasa statistics source ↗	13US$ billion· 2023BEA metro GDP via FRED ↗
Population	0.88million people· 2025Lhasa statistics source ↗	0.14million people· 2023U.S. Census Bureau metro population estimate ↗
Area	29,640sq km· 2024Lhasa administrative area source ↗	11,290sq km· 2020U.S. Census Bureau metropolitan gazetteer ↗
Density (derived)	30people / sq km	12people / sq km

Used only to place Chinese municipality GDP beside peer metro GDP in USD. Not PPP, not constant-price, and not an official exchange-rate series.