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William Woodville Rockhill (May 1, 1854 – December 8, 1914) was a United States diplomat, best known as the author of the U.S.’s Open Door Policy for China and as the first American to learn to speak Tibetan and therefore as the father of modern U.S. Tibetan Studies.

This is an account of two extended expeditions into western China, Mongolia and Tibet Rockhill made in 1880s.. He sent an account of his travels to the Smithsonian Institution for publication (as The Land of the Lamas (1891)), and in 1893, he was awarded the Gold Patron’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. Artifacts from Rockhill’s expeditions are in the collections of the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, and archival materials are in their associated archives, the National Anthropological Archives.