Wangkor Harvest Festival

Wangkor, meaning circling the fields, is a Tibetan harvest-blessing festival held around mid-July, just before barley cutting begins, practiced across Lhasa, Shigatse and other Tibetan regions as recognised national intangible cultural heritage. Villagers process around ripening fields in traditional dress and assigned roles, following altar rites for local deities, before an evening bonfire and Gorshey circle dance close the celebration.

Wangkor, sometimes rendered Ongkor, combines the Tibetan words for fields and circling, and that literal meaning describes exactly what the festival asks farming communities to do each year: walk a formal procession around the ripening barley fields shortly before harvest, typically around mid-July, timed to the point in the agricultural calendar just before grain cutting begins.