Bhutan

Bhutan is a small country in the mountains.

It has no sea. Tall, snowy mountains rise in the north. Green valleys and forests fill the middle. The capital city is Thimphu.

Bhutan is a small kingdom on the eastern ridges of the Himalayas, with India to the south and China's Tibet region to the north. It has no coast.

For a long time Bhutan kept itself apart from the rest of the world, and its rulers did not let foreigners in until well into the 1900s. Today a road from the Indian border reaches the capital, Thimphu, in a few hours by car, a trip that once took six days by mule. Bhutan's statistics office expects about 790,000 people to live there in 2026.

Bhutan is a landlocked country of south-central Asia on the eastern ridges of the Himalayas, between the Assam-Bengal Plain of India and the Plateau of Tibet, a position Britannica describes as of considerable geopolitical significance. Its economic core is the fertile valleys of the Lesser Himalayas, and its political nucleus the Paro and Thimphu valleys.

Historically a remote kingdom whose rulers banned foreigners until well into the 20th century, Bhutan opened up in the second half of the century: a journey from the Indian border to Thimphu that took six days by mule now takes a few hours by car from Phuntsholing. Reforms beginning under King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk (reigned 1952–72) led to a multiparty parliamentary democracy in 2008. The National Statistics Bureau projects a population of 790,718 for 2026; nearly one-third of people are under 15.

Thimphu is the capital city.

It sits in a green valley between mountains. Big white buildings called dzongs stand in many valleys. They have thick white walls.

Thimphu was just a cluster of houses in the 1960s, but it has grown into a busy town. Its large dzong was rebuilt and made bigger to hold the offices of the government. Paro, the next fastest-growing town, has regular flights to India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Thailand.

Almost every valley with people in it has a dzong, a fortress-monastery that stands high above a stream or river. Dzongs once protected valleys from enemies. Today each one is both a government office and a monastery, with thick white walls that slope inward.

Phuntsholing, on the Duars Plain, is the most important town in the south, the terminus of the highway from Thimphu and the gateway to the Lesser Himalayan valleys. Thimphu grew from a cluster of houses in the 1960s, and its dzong has been rebuilt and enlarged to house the government secretariat. Paro is the fastest-growing town after Thimphu; since the mid-1980s it has had scheduled flights to Kolkata, New Delhi, Dhaka, Bangkok and Kathmandu.

The dzong, or fortress-monastery, is a defining feature of Bhutan's Himalayan settlements. Built as strongholds, dzongs now combine administrative centers and monasteries; almost every populated valley has one, usually on a prominent site above a stream. Their thick white walls, sloping inward in Tibetan style, house monks, government officials and artisans, making them focal points of political, economic, religious and social life. Until the late 1960s Bhutan had no towns at all; by the mid-2010s nearly two-fifths of people lived in urban centers.

In the south of Bhutan, it is hot and rainy.

In the middle, there are cool valleys. In the north, it is icy and snowy. Rivers rush down from the mountains.

Bhutan has three regions. In the far south is the Duars Plain, a narrow strip that is hot and steamy, with thick forest and 5,100 to 7,600 millimeters of rain a year. In the middle are the Lesser Himalayas, with broad, fertile valleys such as Paro, Punakha and Thimphu between 1,500 and 2,700 meters high.

In the north rise the Great Himalayas, with snowy peaks over 7,300 meters, glaciers and summer pastures for yaks. Rivers such as the Torsa, Wong, Sankosh and Manas flow south from the mountains to join the Brahmaputra River in India.

Britannica divides Bhutan into the Great Himalayas, with peaks above 7,300 m, high valleys at 3,700–5,500 m below the northern glaciers and a dry climate; the Lesser Himalayas, whose north–south ranges separate the main rivers and whose valleys at 1,500–2,700 m (Paro, Punakha, Thimphu, Ha) receive about 1,000–1,270 mm of rain or less; and the Duars Plain, a strip 12–16 km wide along the southern border with 5,100–7,600 mm of rain. The Torsa, Wong, Sankosh and Manas flow south to the Brahmaputra.

Britannica calls Bhutan's climate perhaps more diverse than that of any similarly sized area in the world: subtropical in the Duars, cooler in the Lesser Himalayas, alpine tundra in the north. Thimphu's January days are about 12 °C, its July days about 19 °C. Vegetation runs from tropical deciduous forest in the south through pine and oak at 900–1,800 m and the most valuable forests of cypress, fir, spruce and juniper at 1,800–2,700 m to birch at the timberline, about 4,200 m.

Tigers prowl through Bhutan's forests.

Elephants live there too. A rare golden monkey lives near a big river. Yaks graze on high mountain meadows.

Bhutan's forests are home to sambar deer, gaurs (a kind of wild ox), elephants and tigers, including the endangered Bengal tiger, especially along the Manas and Sankosh rivers. High in the north, herders take yaks to alpine pastures in summer.

To protect its wildlife, Bhutan has set up protected areas. Royal Manas National Park, created in 1966 on the border with India, is home to the rare golden langur, a slender monkey with a long tail. Jigme Dorji National Park, created in 1974, stretches across all three of Bhutan's climate zones.

Britannica lists sambar deer, gaurs, elephants and tigers, including the endangered Bengal tiger, among Bhutan's animals, especially along the Manas and Sankosh rivers in the center and east and in forested hills. The government has created a network of protected areas, including Royal Manas National Park (1966), adjoining India along the Manas and home to the rare golden langur, and Jigme Dorji National Park (1974) in the northwest, unique in spanning all three climate zones.

The flora shifts continuously from tropical to alpine forms: tall grasses in the lowlands, pine, oak, walnut, rhododendron and magnolia higher up, conifers at 1,800–2,700 m and alpine shrubs and grasses on the Great Himalayas. Because of steep slopes, poor soils and harsh climate, much of the country remains under forest, meadow and grassland.

About 790,000 people live in Bhutan.

Many people speak Dzongkha. Many families farm on the hillsides. They grow rice, corn, potatoes and apples.

About half of the people of Bhutan are Bhutia, also called Ngalop, who live mostly in the north, center and west. Their most common language, Dzongkha, is the official language. In the south, many people are of Nepalese origin and speak Nepali, and in the east live the Sharchop, believed to be Bhutan's earliest people.

Most families live in small villages and farm small fields cut into steps, called terraces, on the hillsides. They grow corn, potatoes, rice, citrus fruits, apples and spices such as cardamom, and raise cattle, pigs and horses.

The Bhutia (Ngalop), about half the population, descend from Tibetan immigrants who arrived from about the 9th century and dominate the north, center and west; Dzongkha, their most common Tibeto-Burman language, is official, written in a script identical with Tibetan. People of Nepalese origin, about one-third, live mostly in the south and southwest and speak Nepali; the Sharchop of the east, related to hill peoples of neighboring areas of India, are believed to be the earliest inhabitants. About three-fourths of people are Buddhist, mostly of the Drukpa Kagyu school, and Hindus are nearly one-fourth; the 2008 constitution calls Buddhism the country's spiritual heritage.

The economy is largely agrarian. Farms are small and terraced, growing corn, potatoes, rice, citrus, apples, nutmeg, mace and cardamom, with cattle, pigs and horses on scattered pastures. The Chhukha hydroelectric project (completed 1987–88) let Bhutan meet its own power needs and export electricity to India, and growth has been strong since the late 20th century.