Chiwogs of Bhutan or chios ( dz, སྤྱི་འོག་ ''chio'') refer to the 1044 basic electoral precincts of
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...
. Chiwogs are also former third-level administrative divisions of
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...
below
''gewog''s. Until 2009, they were the equivalent of municipalities or parishes, containing
clusters of villages and hamlets. There are generally 5 or 6 chios in each geo, and in turn several geos in each ''dzongkha'' (
district
A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...
). To illustrate, there are 50 chios in
Paro District
Paro District (Dzongkha: སྤ་རོ་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Spa-ro rdzong-khag'') is a district (''dzongkhag''), valley, river and town (population 20,000) in Bhutan. It is one of the most historic valleys in Bhutan. Both tra ...
alone. The majority of chios are small rural communities; more densely populated areas tend to be separate
thromde
A thromde ( Dzongkha: ཁྲོམ་སྡེ་; Wylie: ''khrom-sde'') is a second-level administrative division in Bhutan. The legal administrative status of thromdes was most recently codified under the Local Government Act of 2009, and the ...
s, or municipalities. A Chiwog Disaster Management Plan (CDMP) exists in some chios to form an effective responsive to any local disasters. Often, participants in the CDMP are also trained at a geo level for better coordination.
Legal status
Until 2009, chios were administrative divisions subordinate to geos.
Under the 2008
Constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When ...
, chios are mentioned only as electorates, defined as "under a gewog," but did not specifically repeal the administrative status of chios.
Under the
Election Act of 2008, chios are basic electoral constituencies within geos to elect one member of the Geo Tshokde (county committee) and Dzongkha Thromde (district council).
The legal status of chios as electoral precincts is confirmed by the
Local Government Act of 2009, which repeals the Local Government Act of 2007 and provides no administrative role for chios.
[
]
List of chios
The following is a list of the 1,044 chios of Bhutan as of 2011:
Notes
See also
* Gewog
*Thromde
A thromde ( Dzongkha: ཁྲོམ་སྡེ་; Wylie: ''khrom-sde'') is a second-level administrative division in Bhutan. The legal administrative status of thromdes was most recently codified under the Local Government Act of 2009, and the ...
*List of villages in Bhutan
Villages in Bhutan are made up of groups of individual settlements, grouped together by chiwog for elections in Bhutan, election purposes. Village populations vary widely, from dozens to hundreds. Generally, greater numbers of villages within ch ...
References
{{Bhutan topics
Subdivisions of Bhutan