Lhasa railway station

Lhasa railway station, opened in 2006, is the terminus of the Qinghai–Tibet Railway — at elevations reaching 5,072 metres above sea level, the highest railway line in the world. The route from Xining covers roughly 1,956 kilometres across the Tibetan plateau, a project long considered unachievable by engineers due to permafrost and extreme altitude; passenger carriages require pressurised cabins to compensate for low oxygen levels. The station building was designed in the idiom of critical regionalism, incorporating Tibetan architectural motifs into its roofline and detailing without direct pastiche. As the largest and busiest station in Lhasa, it serves as the primary gateway for long-distance arrivals into the Tibet Autonomous Region.