The Karmapa (honorific title His Holiness the Gyalwa (རྒྱལ་བ་, Victorious One) Karmapa, more formally as Gyalwang (རྒྱལ་དབང་ཀརྨ་པ་, King of Victorious Ones) Karmapa, and informally as the Karmapa Lama) is the head of the Karma Kagyu, the largest sub-school of the Kagyu (བཀའ་བརྒྱུད, Wylie: bka' brgyud), itself one of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
The historical seat of the Karmapas is Tsurphu Monastery in the Tolung valley of Tibet. The Karmapa's principal seat in exile is the Dharma Chakra Centre at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim, India. His regional monastic seats are Karma Triyana Dharmachakra in New York and Dhagpo Kagyu Ling in Dordogne, France.
Due to a controversy within the Karma Kagyu school over the recognition process, the identity of the current 17th Karmapa is disputed by some.

Dusum Khyenpa, 1st Karmapa Lama (Wylie: Dus gsum Mkhyen pa, 1110-1193), was a disciple of the Tibetan master Gampopa. A talented child who studied Buddhism with his father from an early age and who sought out great teachers in his twenties and thirties, he is said to have attained enlightenment at the age of fifty while practicing dream yoga. He was henceforth regarded by the contemporary highly respected masters Shakya Śri and Lama Shang as the Karmapa, a manifestation of Avalokiteśvara, whose coming was predicted in the Samadhiraja Sutra and the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra.

The source of the oral lineage, traditionally traced back to the Buddha Vajradhara, was transmitted to the Indian master of mahamudra and tantra called Tilopa (989-1069), through Naropa (1016-1100) to Marpa Lotsawa and Milarepa. These forefathers of the Kagyu (Bka' brGyud) lineage are collectively called the "Golden Rosary".

Karma Pakshi, 2nd Karmapa Lama (1204-1283), is often said to be the first person ever recognized and empowered as a tulku (Wylie: sprul sku), a reincarnated lama (bla ma)

Black Crown

The Karmapas are the holders of the Black Crown (Wylie: Zhwa-nag) and are thus sometimes known as "the Black Hat Lamas". This crown (Wylie: rang 'byung cod pan "self-arisen crown"), is traditionally said to have been woven by the dakinis from their hair and given to the Karmapa in recognition of his spiritual realization. The physical crown displayed by the Karmapas was offered to Deshin Shekpa, 5th Karmapa Lama by the Yongle Emperor of China as a material representation of the spiritual one.

The crown was last known to be located at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim, the last home of the 16th Karmapa, although that location has been subject to some upheaval since 1993 causing some to worry as to whether or not it is still there. An inventory of items remaining at Rumtek is purported to be something the Indian government is going to undertake in the near future.

List of Karmapas

Dusum Khyenpa (དུས་གསུམ་མཁྱེན་པ་) (1110-1193)
Karma Pakshi (ཀརྨ་པཀྵི་) (1204-1283)
Rangjung Dorje (རང་འབྱུང་རྡོ་རྗེ་) (1284-1339)
Rolpe Dorje (རོལ་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་) (1340-1383)
Deshin Shekpa (དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པ་)(1384-1415)
Thongwa Donden (མཐོང་བ་དོན་ལྡན་) (1416-1453)
Chodrak Gyatso (ཆོས་གྲགས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་) (1454-1506)
Mikyo Dorje (མི་བསྐྱོད་རྡོ་རྗེ་) (1507-1554)
Wangchuk Dorje (དབང་ཕྱུག་རྡོ་རྗེ་) (1556-1603)
Choying Dorje (ཆོས་དབྱིངས་རྡོ་རྗེ་) (1604-1674)
Yeshe Dorje (ཡེ་ཤེས་རྡོ་རྗེ་) (1676-1702)
Changchub Dorje (བྱང་ཆུབ་རྡོ་རྗེ་) (1703-1732)
Dudul Dorje (བདུད་འདུལ་རྡོ་རྗེ་) (1733-1797)
Thekchok Dorje (ཐེག་མཆོག་རྡོ་རྗེ་) (1798-1868)
Khakyab Dorje (མཁའ་ཁྱབ་རྡོ་རྗེ་) (1871-1922)
Rangjung Rigpe Dorje (རང་འབྱུང་རིག་པའི་རྡོ་རྗེ་) (1924-1981)
Ogyen Trinley Dorje (ཨོ་རྒྱན་འཕྲིན་ལས་རྡོ་རྗེ།) (b. 1985) or Trinley Thaye Dorje (ཕྲིན་ལས་མཐའ་ཡས་རྡོ་རྗེ།)(b. 1983),