This Day, That Year

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On Dec 25, 1954, the Sichuan-Tibet and Qinghai-Tibet highways were completed and went into operation. They were the first modern highways in the Tibet autonomous region.

With a total length of 4,360 kilometers, the highways were built by soldiers of the People's Liberation Army and locals.

An item on Jan 5, 2005, from China Daily showed a section of the Sichuan-Tibet Highway.

Tibet got its first air route in 1965 when the Lhasa airport opened.

By the end of last year, the region's expressways open to traffic reached 97,800 km.

With the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway in 2006, the region was connected with the rest of the country's inland cities by rail for the first time.

Major transportation links－including the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, which stretches nearly 2,000 km and connects Tibet with neighboring Qinghai province－have significantly boosted Tibet's tourism sector in recent years.

Last year, the autonomous region drew more than 33 million visitors, reaping more than $7 billion in tourism revenue, compared with the region's 1.8 million visitors and about $274 million in revenue in 2005, the year before the railway's launch, according to figures from the regional government.

As an extension of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the construction of the Lhasa-Shigatse railway was completed in 2014, and construction of the Lhasa-Nyingchi Railway has reached its track-laying phase.

The region has now opened five airports, with 96 domestic and international routes connecting Tibet and 48 major cities nationwide by the end of June.