Wangdue Phodrang District ( Dzongkha: དབང་འདུས་ཕོ་བྲང་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Dbang-'dus Pho-brang rdzong-khag''; previously spelled "Wangdi Phodrang") is a

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 ...

(district) of central

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 ...

. This is also the name of the

dzong Dzong architecture is used for dzongs, a distinctive type of fortified monastery ( dz, རྫོང, , ) architecture found mainly in Bhutan and Tibet. The architecture is massive in style with towering exterior walls surrounding a complex of cou ...

(built in 1638) which dominates the district, and the name of the small market town outside the gates of the dzong—it is the capital (

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 ...

) of Wangdue Phodrang District). The name is said to have been given by the

Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal Ngawang Namgyal (later granted the honorific Zhabdrung Rinpoche, approximately "at whose feet one submits") (; alternate spellings include ''Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel''; 1594–1651) and known colloquially as The Bearded Lama, was a Tibetan Bud ...

who was searching for the best location for a dzong to prevent incursions from the south. The word "wangdue" means unification of Country, and "Phodrang" means Palace in Dzongkha. Wangdue Phodrang is the largest dzongkhag in Bhutan by area and is bordered by Dagana and

Tsirang Tsirang District (Dzongkha: རྩི་རང་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Rtsi-rang rdzong-khag''; previously (Chirang), is one of the 20 dzongkhags (districts) of Bhutan. The administrative center of the district is Damphu. Tsirang ...

dzongkhags to the south,

Tongsa Trongsa, previously Tongsa (, ), is a Thromde or town, and the capital of Trongsa District in central Bhutan. The name means "new village" in Dzongkha. The first temple was built in 1543 by the Drukpa lama Ngagi Wangchuck, who was the great-gran ...

dzongkhag to the east,

Thimphu Thimphu (; dz, ཐིམ་ཕུག ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of Bhutan. It is situated in the western central part of Bhutan, and the surrounding valley is one of Bhutan's ''dzongkhags'', the Thimphu District. The ancient ...

and

Punakha Punakha ( dz, སྤུ་ན་ཁ་) is the administrative centre of Punakha dzongkhag, one of the 20 districts of Bhutan. Punakha was the capital of Bhutan and the seat of government until 1955, when the capital was moved to Thimphu. It is abo ...

dzongkhag to the west, and

Gasa GASA Group (''Gartnernes Salgsforeninger''; "co-operative marketing organisations") is a Danish company that imports and exports flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Founded in 1929 as a fruit, flowers and vegetable auction co-operative, the mul ...

dzongkhag and a small section of border with

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

to the north. It is listed as a tentative site in Bhutan's Tentative List for UNESCO inclusion.

Wangdue Phodrang Dzong

An historic

built by

in 1638 was located at Wangdue Phodrang. The dzong was burnt down by a fire in June 2012. However, as the dzong was being renovated at the time of the fire, most of the historic relics had been put into storage and so were saved from destruction.

Languages

The dominant language in Wangdue Phodrang is Dzongkha, the national language, spoken in the western two-thirds of the district. Communities along the border with Bumthang District in the northeast speak Lakha. Along the same border, in central Wangdue Phodrang, inhabitants speak

Nyenkha Nyenkha ( Dzongkha: འནྱེན་ཁ་; Wylie: Nyen-kha''; also called "'Nyenkha", "Henkha", "Lap", "Nga Ked", and "Mangsdekha") is an East Bodish language spoken by about 10,000 people in the eastern, northern, and western areas of the ...

. In southeast Wangdue Phodrang, remnants of the autochthonous 'Olekha (Black Mountain Monpa) speaking community barely survive.

Transport

There are three paved roads in Wangdue Phodrang dzongkhag. The

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, ...

enters from the west at Dochu La Pass, crosses the Sankosh (Puna Tsang Chhu) at Wangdue Phodrang dzong, and continues east to Tongsa. One spur road heads north from Wangdue Phodrang to the dzong at

and slightly beyond. This road eventually becomes the trail to

. A second spur departs the Lateral Road near the Pele La pass halfway between Wangdue and Tongsa, traveling south a short distance to

Gangteng Monastery The Gangteng Monastery ( Dzongkha: ), generally known as ''Gangtey Gonpa'' or ''Gangtey Monastery'', is an important monastery of Nyingmapa school of Buddhism, the main seat of the Pema Lingpa tradition. located in the Wangdue Phodrang District in ...

and the

Phobjika valley The Phobjikha Valley ཕོབ་སྦྱིས་ཁ spelled as Pho-sbis-kha, (the suffix ''kha'' is an element in many place-names in Bhutan and its use is generally optional both in colloquial speech and in literary forms) is a vast U-shaped v ...

where the rare

black-necked crane The black-necked Crane (''Grus nigricollis'') is a medium-sized crane in Asia that breeds on the Tibetan Plateau and remote parts of India and Bhutan. It is 139 cm (55 in) long with a 235 cm (7.8 ft) wingspan, and it weighs ...

s (''grus nigricollis'') may be found.

Administrative divisions

Wangdue Phodrang District is divided into 15 village blocks (or '' gewogs''): *

Athang Gewog Athang Gewog (Dzongkha: ཨ་ཐང་) is a gewog (village block) of Wangdue Phodrang District, Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia ...

* Bjena Gewog * Daga Gewog * Dangchu Gewog * Gangte Gewog * Gasetsho Gom Gewog * Gasetsho Om Gewog * Kazhi Gewog * Nahi Gewog * Nyisho Gewog * Phangyuel Gewog * Phobji Gewog * Ruepisa Gewog * Sephu Gewog * Thedtsho Gewog

Environment

Most of Wangdue Phodrang District is environmentally protected. The northern half of the district (the ''gewogs'' of Kazhi, Dangchu and Sephu) falls within

Wangchuck Centennial Park Wangchuck Centennial National Park in northern Bhutan is the kingdom's largest national park, spanning over five districts, occupying significant portions of northern Bumthang, Lhuntse, and Wangdue Phodrang Districts. It borders Tibet to th ...

, with northwestern pockets (the ''gewog'' of Kazhi) belonging to

Jigme Dorji National Park The Jigme Dorji National Park (JDNP), named after the late Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, is the second-largest National Park of Bhutan. It occupies almost the entire Gasa District, as well as the northern areas of Thimphu District, Paro District, Puna ...

. Southeastern Wangdue (the ''gewogs'' of Athang and Phobji) is part of

Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park (formerly Black Mountains National Park) covers an area of in central Bhutan. It protects a large area of the Black Mountains (Bhutan), Black Mountains, a sub−range of the Himalayan Range System. The park ...

. Also protected are the

biological corridor A wildlife corridor, habitat corridor, or green corridor is an area of habitat connecting wildlife populations separated by human activities or structures (such as roads, development, or logging). This allows an exchange of individuals between ...

s crisscrossing the district that connect Bhutan's extensive national park system. The environmentally precious and vulnerable lands of

Phobjika Valley The Phobjikha Valley ཕོབ་སྦྱིས་ཁ spelled as Pho-sbis-kha, (the suffix ''kha'' is an element in many place-names in Bhutan and its use is generally optional both in colloquial speech and in literary forms) is a vast U-shaped v ...

are not protected by the government, but are maintained by the first and only Bhutanese private conservation group, the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature (RSPN). Chartered as a public benefit nonprofit organization (PBO), the RSPN focuses on education, sustainable agriculture, ecotourism, and improving living standards in ecologically responsible ways.

Tourist attractions

Phobjikha Valley The Phobjikha Valley ཕོབ་སྦྱིས་ཁ spelled as Pho-sbis-kha, (the suffix ''kha'' is an element in many place-names in Bhutan and its use is generally optional both in colloquial speech and in literary forms) is a vast U-shaped v ...

Wangdue Phodrang Dzong Wangdue Phodrang District ( Dzongkha: དབང་འདུས་ཕོ་བྲང་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Dbang-'dus Pho-brang rdzong-khag''; previously spelled "Wangdi Phodrang") is a dzongkhag (district) of central Bhutan. This ...

* Adha Tsho * Gangtey Monastery

References

External links

Administrative map of Bhutan.
{{Authority control Districts of Bhutan