Construction began in 1994, planned as key infrastructure for the Tibet Autonomous Region. The entire project cost 113 million yuan and was completed in less than twelve months, opening in 1995 under the name Working People's Cultural Palace Square. It was among the first major urban planning projects to reshape Lhasa's city center around the Potala as a focal point. Photographs from the late 1930s show the Potala's south side with no square at all - just the slope of the hill and the low buildings at its base. The square's creation transformed the Potala from a building you approached through narrow streets into a building you see across a grand axis, fundamentally changing how visitors experience the palace. In August 1995, management of the square was handed to the Tibetan Working People's Cultural Palace.

In 2005, the square was expanded from 110,000 to 180,000 square meters, with 150 million yuan invested in the renovation. The expansion pushed the western boundary to the foot of Yaowang Mountain and added an artificial lake, a White Pagoda Square, a music fountain plaza, a sculpture square, and nearly 70,000 square meters of green lawn equipped with automatic sprinkler systems. One of the more ambitious features is the water circulation system, rebuilt in 2020. It draws water from Longwangtan Park, feeds it through the eastern lake, channels it west through clean water pipes, and returns it to an artificial lake near the Panchen Lama's residence - a 10.9-kilometer loop that keeps the water moving and the landscape fresh. At 3,650 meters above sea level, maintaining greenery and flowing water requires engineering that lower-altitude cities take for granted.

Thirteen relief panels line the square, designed by the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts. The central panel stretches 90 meters and depicts what its creators describe as the past, present, and future of Tibet - scenes of culture, religion, and daily life rendered in stone. By day, white doves circle above the crowds. By night, the musical fountain becomes Lhasa's most popular attraction: water jets surge skyward and collapse into lotus shapes, lit in shifting colors while Tibetan music plays across the plaza. The spectacle transforms the square from a daytime civic space into an evening performance venue, drawing tourists and locals alike. The square stretches roughly 600 meters east to west and 400 meters north to south, with six Chinese-style lamps on each side and large green areas flanking the central axis.

At the square's southern end stands the Monument to the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, built in 2001 to mark the 50th anniversary of Tibet's annexation by the People's Republic of China. The monument's name was inscribed by Jiang Zemin, then General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, and Hu Jintao attended its groundbreaking ceremony on July 18, 2001. The word "peaceful" in the monument's title is itself a statement of political position - one that many Tibetans contest. The square exists in this tension: it is genuinely beautiful, with its fountains, gardens, and views of the Potala that no earlier generation of Lhasa residents ever had. It is also a space that narrates a particular version of history. The Potala Palace itself was declared a national cultural relic in 1961 and has been maintained through annual repairs. The square below tells a newer, more deliberate story, and visitors must decide for themselves how to read it.