The Tibetan population in the region recorded steady growth since its peaceful liberation in 1951. The population of Tibetans have maintained over 90 percent of the total population in the autonomous region.

According to historical records, approximately one million Tibetans lived in Tibet when the government of the imperial Yuan Dynasty send court officials to check out registered permanent residents in Tibet in the 13th century. Since then, the number of Tibetans had recorded negative growth in the hundreds of years down to the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951.

By 1953 when China carried out its first national census, the number of Tibetans in Tibet stood at one million.

According to the outcome of the fourth nationwide census conducted in 1990, however, the population in Tibet rose by 1.2 million in 37 years to some 2.2 million, and the people of Tibetan ethnicity made up 95.5 percent of the region's total population.

The latest statistics indicated that the number of Tibetans totaled 2.5 million, accounting for over 92 percent of the population in the whole Tibet autonomous region.