Gyalshing District or Geyzing District is a

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 ...

of the

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 ...

n state of

Sikkim Sikkim (; ) is a state in Northeastern India. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north and northeast, Bhutan in the east, Province No. 1 of Nepal in the west and West Bengal in the south. Sikkim is also close to the Siligur ...

. Its headquarter is

Geyzing Gyalshing or Geyzing is a city, located in Gyalshing district or Geyzing district in the Indian state of Sikkim. It is administrative headquarter of district. The town is connected to the capital Gangtok by a metalled road. Geyzing is also con ...

, also known as

Gyalshing Gyalshing or Geyzing is a city, located in Gyalshing district or Geyzing district in the Indian state of Sikkim. It is administrative headquarter of district. The town is connected to the capital Gangtok by a metalled road. Geyzing is also con ...

. The district is a favourite with trekkers due to the high elevations. Other important towns include

Pelling Pelling is a small hill town in the district of West Sikkim, India. Pelling is nestled at an altitude of 2,150 m (7,200 feet). The town is located at a distance of 10 km from the district headquarters of Geyzing and 131 k ...

and

Yuksom Yuksom is a historical town in Geyzing subdivision of West Sikkim district in the Northeast Indian state of Sikkim. It was the first capital of Kingdom of Sikkim established in 1642 AD by Phuntsog Namgyal who was the first Chogyal (temporal and ...

. Local people also call it as ''Pallo-Sikkim'' and ''Sano-Sikkim'' commonly.

History

West Sikkim is the site of the ancient state capital

. West Sikkim It served as Sikkim's capital beginning in 1642 for almost 50 years until it was shifted to

Rabdentse Rabdentse was the second capital of the former Kingdom of Sikkim from 1670 to 1814. The capital city was destroyed by the invading Gurkha army and only the ruins of the palace and the chortens are seen here now. However, the ruins of this city a ...

. The district was under the occupation of the

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

ese for 30 years in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After

Anglo-Nepalese War The Anglo-Nepalese War (1 November 1814 – 4 March 1816), also known as the Gorkha War, was fought between the Gorkhali army of the Kingdom of Nepal (present-day Nepal) and the British forces of the East India Company (EIC, present-day Indi ...

(1814–16), the district was returned to Sikkim.

Geography

West Sikkim covers an area of . Attractions include the

Khecheopalri Lake Khecheopalri Lake, originally known as Kha-Chot-Palri (meaning the heaven of Padmasambhava), is a lake located near Khecheopalri village, west of Gangtok in the West Sikkim district of the Northeastern Indian state of Sikkim. Located to the ...

, where, according to legend, not a leaf is allowed to fall on the surface of the lake and the

Dubdi Monastery Dubdi Monastery, occasionally called Yuksom Monastery, is a Buddhist monastery of the Nyingma sect of Tibetan Buddhism near Yuksom, in the Geyzing subdivision of West Sikkim district, in eastern India. The Chogyar Namgyal established the fir ...

, the first monastery of the state.

Assembly constituencies

The district was previously divided into 5 assembly constituencies. * Yoksam-Tashiding (BL) * Yangthang * Maneybung-Dentam * Gyalshing-Barnyak *

Rinchenpong Rinchenpong is a town in West Sikkim, India. It is situated in West Sikkim, about 123 km west of Gangtok, 47 km due south of Gyalshing, close to the village of Kaluk. It sits at an altitude of 5576 feet (1,700m). It is known for the ...

(BL)

National protected area

Khangchendzonga National Park Khangchendzonga National Park, also Kanchenjunga Biosphere Reserve, is a national park and a biosphere reserve located in Sikkim, India. It was inscribed to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list in July 2016, becoming the first "Mixed Heritage" s ...

(Part)

Economy

The economy is mainly agrarian, despite most of the land being unfit for cultivation owing to the precipitous and rocky slopes.

Transport

Roads are in poor condition owing to the frequent landslides.

Demographics

According to the 2011 census West Sikkim district has a

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

of 136,435, roughly equal to the nation of

Grenada Grenada ( ; Grenadian Creole French: ) is an island country in the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea at the southern end of the Grenadines island chain. Grenada consists of the island of Grenada itself, two smaller islands, Carriacou and Pe ...

. This gives it a ranking of 608th in India (out of a total of 640). The district has a population density of . Its

population growth rate Population growth is the increase in the number of people in a population or dispersed group. Actual global human population growth amounts to around 83 million annually, or 1.1% per year. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to ...

over the decade 2001-2011 was 10.58%. West Sikkim has a

sex ratio The sex ratio (or gender ratio) is usually defined as the ratio of males to females in a population. As explained by Fisher's principle, for evolutionary reasons this is typically about 1:1 in species which reproduce sexually. Many species devia ...

of 941

females Female (symbol: ♀) is the sex of an organism that produces the large non-motile ova (egg cells), the type of gamete (sex cell) that fuses with the male gamete during sexual reproduction. A female has larger gametes than a male. Females a ...

for every 1000 males, and a

literacy rate Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...

of 78.69%. After bifurcation the district had a population of 71,675. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes made up 3,391 (4.73%) and 31,847 (44.43%) of the population respectively. The people are mainly of Limbu descent. Other ethnic groups include the Lepcha and

Bhutia The Bhutia (; sip, Drenjongpa/Drenjop; ; "inhabitants of Sikkim".) are a community of Sikkimese people living in the state of Sikkim in northeastern India, who speak Drenjongke or Sikkimese, a Tibetic language fairly mutually intelligible w ...

communities. Nepali is the most widely spoken language in the district.

Religion

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...

is followed by majority of the people in the West Sikkim district.

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...

followed by a considerable population. The

Kirateshwar Mahadev Temple Kirateshwar Mahadev Temple () is a Hindu temple, identified to be a Hindu pilgrimage site which is located at Legship, West Sikkim, India along the banks of River Rangeet, which has many episodes of the Mahabharata attached to it. The temple is ...

, a major Hindu pilgrimage centre in Sikkim, is situated in

Legship Legship (; Lepcha: ) is a small town in west district of the Indian State of Sikkim. Legship is the gateway to West Sikkim. It is located on the main road connecting West Sikkim with the rest of the state, on the banks of river Rangit. The plac ...

in West Sikkim district.

Languages

At the time of the

2011 Census of India The 2011 Census of India or the 15th Indian Census was conducted in two phases, house listing and population enumeration. The House listing phase began on 1 April 2010 and involved the collection of information about all buildings. Information ...

, 51.85% of the population in the district spoke Nepali, 22.61% Limbu, 8.68% Lepcha, 7.05% Bhotia, 2.69%

Sherpa Sherpa may refer to: Ethnography * Sherpa people, an ethnic group in north eastern Nepal * Sherpa language Organizations and companies * Sherpa (association), a French network of jurists dedicated to promoting corporate social responsibility * ...

, 1.55%

Rai RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana (; commercially styled as Rai since 2000; known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane) is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many ter ...

and 1.48%

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

as their first language.

Flora and fauna

A natural view of West Sikkim, photo taken from hilltop

West Sikkim houses a great diversity of flora and fauna, many of which are used by Indigenous and local communities. Since most of the district is hilly it enjoys a

temperate In geography, the temperate climates of Earth occur in the middle latitudes (23.5° to 66.5° N/S of Equator), which span between the tropics and the polar regions of Earth. These zones generally have wider temperature ranges throughout t ...

climate. Above 3,800 m (12,000 ft) the slopes are full of

rhododendron ''Rhododendron'' (; from Ancient Greek ''rhódon'' "rose" and ''déndron'' "tree") is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are nati ...

forests. In 1977, West Sikkim district became home to

, which has an area of . It shares the park with

North Sikkim district North Sikkim (now officially named as Mangan District) is a district of the Indian state of Sikkim. Its district headquarters is Mangan. It is the seventh least populous district in the country (out of 640). Geography The district is the ...