The Pota­la Palace, win­ter palace of the Dalai Lama since the 7th cen­tu­ry, sym­bol­izes Tibetan Bud­dhism and its cen­tral role in the tra­di­tion­al admin­is­tra­tion of Tibet. The com­plex, com­pris­ing the White and Red Palaces with their ancil­lary build­ings, is built on Red Moun­tain in the cen­tre of Lhasa Val­ley, at an alti­tude of 3,700m. Also found­ed in the 7th cen­tu­ry, the Jokhang Tem­ple Monastery is an excep­tion­al Bud­dhist reli­gious com­plex. Nor­bu­l­ing­ka, the Dalai Lama‘s for­mer sum­mer palace, con­struct­ed in the 18th cen­tu­ry, is a mas­ter­piece of Tibetan art. The beau­ty and orig­i­nal­i­ty of the archi­tec­ture of these three sites, their rich orna­men­ta­tion and har­mo­nious inte­gra­tion in a strik­ing land­scape, add to their his­toric and reli­gious inter­est.