Chukha District (
Dzongkha: ཆུ་ཁ་རྫོང་ཁག་;
Wylie: ''Chu-kha rdzong-khag''; also spelled "Chhukha") is one of the 20
dzongkhag (districts) comprising
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 mountainou ...
. The major town is
Phuentsholing which is the gateway city along the sole road which connects
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
to western Bhutan (cf.
Lateral Road
The East-West Highway, also known as the Lateral Road, is the Bhutan primary east–west corridor, connecting Phuentsholing in the southwest to Trashigang in the east. In between, the Lateral Road runs directly through Wangdue Phodrang, Trongsa, ...
). Chukha is the commercial and the financial capital of Bhutan. With Bhutan's oldest hydropower plant,
Chukha hydel (completed in 1986–88), and
Tala Hydroelectricity Project, the country's largest power plant, Chukha is the
dzongkhag which contributes the most to the
GDP
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...
of the country. Also located in Chukha district are some of the country's oldest industrial companies like the Bhutan Carbide Chemical Limited (BCCL) and the Bhutan Boards Products Limited (BBPL).
Languages
In Chukha, the main native languages are
Dzongkha, the national language spoken by
Ngalop
The Ngalop ( dz, སྔལོངཔ་ ; "earliest risen people" or "first converted people" according to folk etymology) are people of Tibetan origin who migrated to Bhutan as early as the ninth century. Orientalists adopted the term "Bhote" or ...
people in the north, and
Lhotshampa
The Lhotshampa or Lhotsampa ( ne, ल्होत्साम्पा; ) people are a heterogeneous Bhutanese people of Nepalese descent. "Lhotshampa", which means "southern borderlanders" in Dzongkha, began to be used by the Bhutanese state i ...
in the south. The Bhutanese
Lhokpu language
Lhokpu, also ''Lhobikha'' or ''Taba-Damey-Bikha'', is one of the autochthonous languages of Bhutan spoken by the Lhop people. It is spoken in southwestern Bhutan along the border of Samtse and Chukha Districts. Van Driem (2003) leaves it unclassi ...
, spoken by the
Lhop minority, is also present in the southwest along the border with
Samtse District
Samtse District ( Dzongkha: བསམ་རྩེ་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Bsam-rtse rdzong-khag''; older spelling "Samchi") is one of the 20 dzongkhags (districts) comprising Bhutan. It comprises two subdistricts (''dungkhags''): ...
.
Administrative divisions
Chukha District is divided into eleven village blocks (or ''
gewogs''):
*
Bjacho Gewog
Bjacho Gewog ( Dzongkha: བྱག་ཕྱོགས་), also spelled Bjagchhog, is a gewog (village block) of Chukha District, Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a l ...
*
Bongo Gewog
Bongo Gewog ( Dzongkha: སྦོང་སྒོར་) is a gewog (village block) of Chukha District, Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South ...
*
Chapcha Gewog
Chapcha Gewog ( Dzongkha: སྐྱབས་ཆ་,''Chaapchha Gewog'') is a '' gewog'' (village block) of Chukha District, Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landloc ...
*
Dala Gewog
Dala Gewog ( Dzongkha: དར་ལ་,''Darla Gewog'') is a gewog (village group) of Chukha District, Bhutan. The gewog has an area of 139.7 square kilometres and contains 7 villages. Dala Gewog is part of Phuentsholing Dungkhag, along with Logc ...
*
Dungna Gewog
Dungna Gewog (Dzongkha: གདུང་ན་,''Doongna Gewog'') is a gewog (village block) of Chukha District, Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country ...
*
Geling Gewog
Geling Gewog (Dzongkha: དགེ་གླིང་) is a gewog (village block) of Chukha District, Bhutan. The gewog has an area of 247 square kilometres and contains 11 villages.
References
Gewogs of Bhutan
Chukha District
{{Bhutan-geo ...
*
Getena Gewog
*
Logchina Gewog
Logchina Gewog ( Dzongkha: ལོག་ཅི་ན་,''Loggchina Gewog'') is a gewog (village block) of Chukha District, Bhutan. The gewog has an area of 70.4 square kilometres and contains 12 villages. Logchina Gewog is part of Phuentsholing Du ...
*
Metakha Gewog
*
Phuentsholing Gewog
Phuentsholing Gewog ( Dzongkha: ཕུན་ཚོགས་གླིང་,''Phuentshogling Gewog'') is a gewog (village block) of Chukha District, Bhutan. The gewog has an area of 139.8 square kilometres and contains 19 villages. Phuentsholing Ge ...
*
Sampheling Gewog
Environment
Chukha Dzongkhag covers a total area of 1880 sq. km,
but unlike most other districts, Chukha, along with
Samtse
Samtse is a town and the headquarers of the Samtse District in Bhutan. The population of the town was 5,396 as of 2017. The population of the Samtse district was 60,100 at the 2005 census.
Samtse is close to the Bhutan–India border. Across the ...
, contain no
protected areas of Bhutan
The protected areas of Bhutan are its national parks, nature preserves, and wildlife sanctuaries. Most of these protected areas were first set aside in the 1960s, originally covering most of the northern and southern regions of Bhutan. Today, prot ...
. Although much of southern Bhutan contained protected areas in the 1960s, park-level environmental protection became untenable.
See also
*
Districts of Bhutan
*
Dungna
*
Paro Province
Paro Province (Dzongkha: སྤ་རོ་; Wylie: ''spa-ro'') was one of the nine historical Provinces of Bhutan.
Paro Province occupied lands in western Bhutan, corresponding approximately to modern Paro District. It was administered from the ...
*
Daga Province
Daga Province (Dzongkha: དར་དཀར་; Wylie: ''dar-dkar'') was one of the nine historical Provinces of Bhutan.
Daga Province occupied lands in west-central Bhutan. It was administered from the town of Daga. The ruling governor was kno ...
References
External links
Official ''Dzhongkha profile''with a map of gewogs
From RAO Online
{{Bhutan-geo-stub
Districts of Bhutan