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The Chinese name for Tibet, 西藏 (Xīzàng), is a phonetic transliteration derived from the region called Tsang (western Ü-Tsang). The Chinese name originated during the Qing Dynasty of China, ca. 1700. It can be broken down into xī 西 ("west"), and “zàng” 藏 (from Ü-Tsang, but also literally “Buddhist scripture,” “storage” or "treasure"). The pre-1700s historic Chinese term for Tibet was "吐蕃". In modern Standard Mandarin, the first character is pronounced tǔ. The second character is normally pronounced fān; in the context of references to Tibet, most authorities say that it should be pronounced bō (making the word "Tubo"), while some authorities make no distinction between the general pronunciation and that in the Tibetan context, making the word "Tufan". Its reconstructed Medieval Chinese pronunciation is /t'obwǝn/, which comes from the Turkic word for “heights” which is also the origin of the English term Tibet. When expressing themselves in Chinese, many exiled Tibetans, including the Dalai Lama's government in Dharamsala, now use the term 吐博 Tǔbó. Although the second character is not historically accurate, it has the correct pronunciation (whereas ambiguity attends the pronunciation of 蕃), and thus 吐博 is deemed by some to be a more appropriate way to write Tibet in Chinese.
The government of the People's Republic of China equates Tibet with the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). As such, the name Xīzàng is equated with the TAR. In order to refer to non-TAR Tibetan areas, or to all of cultural Tibet, the term 藏区 Zàngqū (literally, "ethnic Tibetan areas") is used. However, Chinese-language versions of pro-Tibetan independence websites, such as the Free Tibet Campaign, the Voice of Tibet, and Tibet Net use 西藏 (“Xīzàng”), not 藏区 ("Zàngqū"), to mean historic Tibet. Some English-speakers reserve Xīzàng, the Chinese word transliterated into English, for the TAR, to keep the concept distinct from that of historic Tibet. The character 藏 (zàng) has been used in transcriptions referring to Tsang as early as the Yuan Dynasty, if not earlier, though the modern term Xizang (western Tsang) was devised in the 18th century. The Chinese character 藏 (Zàng) has also been generalized to refer to all of Tibet, including other concepts related to Tibet such as the Tibetan language (藏文, Zàngwén) and the Tibetan people (藏族, Zàngzú). via |
Tibet Wikipedia 
