Kingdom
Kingdom of Bhutan, nestled in the Eastern region of the Himalayas, Bhutan is a small country roughly the size of Switzerland and fondly referred to as the Druk Yul (Land of the Thunder Dragon) by the Bhutanese. Bordered by China to the north, and by the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal and Sikkim on the east, south and west respectively. Bhutan is a landlocked country about 300km long and 150km wide; encompassing 46,500 sq km. Bhutan is the best, indeed the only, remaining examples of the isolated Buddhist Himalayan Kingdom. It was the mighty Himalayas which protected Bhutan from the rest of the world and left the Kingdom blissfully untouched. Bhutan is the only country to maintain Mahayana Buddhism in its Tantric Vajrayana form as the official religion. The presence of so many monasteries, temples, stupas and monks is indicative of the overarching role religion plays throughout the nation.
The people of Bhutan are composed of three main ethnic groups: the Sharchops of the East, the Ngalops of the West and the Lhotshampas in the South. Together, they form the indigenous population known as the Drukpa, The Sharchops, believed to be of Indo-Mongoloid origin, and are considered to be the earliest, indigenous inhabitants of Bhutan, while the Ngalops are thought to have migrated from the Tibetan plains, importing Buddhism into the country. The Lhotshampas came from Nepal in the early 20th century in search of agricultural land and work, settling in the southern foothills of the country. Minority groups in Bhutan include the Layap, Brokpa, Doya, Lhopu, Dhakpa and Lepcha.
This diversity in ethnicity, as well as the geographic isolation of Bhutan’s highland villages, has resulted in the emergence of about 19 different languages and dialects spoken by different ethnic groups around the country. The national language of Bhutan is Dzongkha, but schooling is done in English, which is widely spoken.