The Rinpungpa were a regional power based in west-central Tibet (Tsang) that flourished from the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries. Patronizing the Kagyu sect and the Karmapas, the Rinpungpa lords were engaged in a series of conflicts with Pakmodru and other Tibetan principalities. In the 1560s, the declining Rinpungpas were defeated and their realm absorbed by the kings of Shigatse.