Chukha District (

Dzongkha Dzongkha (; ) is a Sino-Tibetan language that is the official and national language of Bhutan. It is written using the Tibetan script. The word means "the language of the fortress", from ' "fortress" and ' "language". , Dzongkha had 171,080 n ...

: ཆུ་ཁ་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Chu-kha rdzong-khag''; also spelled "Chhukha") is one of the 20

dzongkhag The Kingdom of Bhutan is divided into 20 districts ( Dzongkha: ). Bhutan is located between the Tibet Autonomous Region of China and India on the eastern slopes of the Himalayas in South Asia. are the primary subdivisions of Bhutan. They ...

(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 mountainous ...

. The major town is

Phuentsholing Phuntsholing, also spelled as Phuentsholing ( dz, ཕུན་ཚོགས་གླིང་), is a border town in southern Bhutan and is the administrative seat of Chukha District. The town occupies parts of both Phuentsholing Gewog and Sampheli ...

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

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

, 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''): T ...

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 Getena Gewog ( Dzongkha: གད་སྟག་ན,''Getana Gewog''་) is a gewog (village block) of Chukha District, Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked c ...

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 Metakha Gewog (Dzongkha: སྨད་བཏབ་ཁ་,Metabkha Gewog) is a gewog (village block) of Chukha District, Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked ...

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.

References

External links

Official ''Dzhongkha profile''
with a map of gewogs

From RAO Online {{Bhutan-geo-stub Districts of Bhutan

Languages

Administrative divisions

Environment

See also

References

External links