Losar, the Tibetan New Year

Losar is the Tibetan New Year, the main popular festival of Tibet. It was once tied to the barley harvest, the staple of the plateau. From the thirteenth century, under the Sakya, the date was fixed on the Tibetan lunar calendar, which does not always coincide with Chinese New Year — some years they fall on the same new moon, some years they do not.

Houses are cleaned, new clothes put on, offerings made, and families visit. The days around Losar are as long a break as the community can take. This page does not give a Gregorian date: the calendar of the site does not compute the Tibetan year, and a date invented here would be a false one. The French guide keeps a fiche; the English hub points to it by telling the same facts without a day.