Zhemgang 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 ...

: གཞམས་སྒང་རྫོང་ཁག་;

Wylie transliteration Wylie transliteration is a method for transliterating Tibetan script using only the letters available on a typical English-language typewriter. The system is named for the American scholar Turrell V. Wylie, who created the system and published i ...

: ''Gzhams-sgang rdzong-khag''; previously "Shemgang"), 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 ...

s (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 ...

. It is bordered by

Sarpang Sarpang, also transliterated as Sarbhang or Sarbang, is a thromde or town in Sarpang District in southern Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in So ...

Trongsa 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 ...

, Bumthang,

Mongar Mongar (Dzongkha: མོང་སྒར) is a town and the seat of Mongar District in eastern Bhutan. it had a population of 3502. Mongar is on the road from Thimphu to Trashigang. It is one of the oldest educational hubs of the country. It ha ...

and

Pemagatshel District Pemagatshel is one of the 20 districts of Bhutan. Language Native speak Tshangla (Sharchopkha), an East Bodish language that is the ''lingua franca'' of eastern Bhutan. Population Pemagatshel district, as of 2005, had a population of 13,864 ...

s, and borders

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

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 the south. The administrative center of the district is

Zhemgang Zhemgang is a town in Zhemgang District, Bhutan. It is the capital ( dzongkhag thromde A thromde (Dzongkha: ཁྲོམ་སྡེ་; Wylie: ''khrom-sde'') is a second-level administrative division in Bhutan. The legal administrative status o ...

Languages

The dominant language in Zhemgang is Khengkha. Historically, Khengkha and its speakers have had close contact with speakers of Kurtöpkha,

Nupbikha The Nupbi language ( dz, nupba'i kha "Western language") is an East Bodish language spoken by about 2200 people in central Bhutan. Historically, Nupbikha and its speakers have had close contact with speakers of Bumthang, Kurtöp and Kheng, ne ...

, and Bumthangkha to the north, to the extent that they may be considered part of a wider collection of "Bumthang languages." The term

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 ...

may subsume several related linguistic and cultural groups, such as the Kheng people and speakers of Bumthang language. S.R. Chakravarty asserts that Kheng are one of the earliest inhabitants that language spread upwards from Kheng into Bumthang and Kurtöp. By all accounts the Kheng are more closely related to the people of central Bhutan than they are to their neighbors in eastern Bhutan, who are primarily Sharchops. The Kheng still retain special trade relations with the Bumthang, including providing winter pasture rights for Bumthang yaks. SIL International estimates there are 50,000 Kheng speakers.

Security issues

Starting in the 1990s, the

United Liberation Front of Assam The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) (Assamese: সংযুক্ত মুক্তি বাহিনী, অসম) is an armed separatist organisation operating in the Northeast Indian state of Assam. It seeks to establish an indep ...

maintained guerrilla bases in the forests of southern Zhemgang from which they would launch attacks on targets in India and then return across the border. In late 2003 the

King of Bhutan The Druk Gyalpo (; 'Dragon King') is the head of state of the Kingdom of Bhutan. In the Dzongkha language, Bhutan is known as ''Drukyul'' which translates as "The Land of the Thunder Dragon". Thus, while kings of Bhutan are known as ''Druk ...

Jigme Singye Wangchuck Jigme Singye Wangchuck ( dz, འཇིགས་མེད་སེང་གེ་དབང་ཕྱུག་, ; born 11 November 1955) is a member of the House of Wangchuck who was the king of Bhutan (Druk Gyalpo) from 1972 until his abdicati ...

led a

military operation A military operation is the coordinated military actions of a state, or a non-state actor, in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state or actor's favor. Operations may ...

which largely swept the guerrillas out of the region. Because of the risk of attack, foreign tourists were not allowed to visit Zhemgang in the past.

Administrative divisions

Zhemgang Districts comprises eight village blocks (or '' gewogs''): * Bardho Gewog * Bjoka Gewog *

Goshing Gewog Goshing Gewog ( Dzongkha: སྒོ་ཤིང་) is a gewog (village block) of Zhemgang District, Bhutan. Goshing Gewog is also a part of Panbang Dungkhag A dungkhag ( dz, དྲུང་ཁག་ ''drungkhak'') is a sub-district of a dzongk ...

* Nangkor Gewog * Ngangla Gewog * Phangkhar Gewog * Shingkhar Gewog *

Trong Gewog Trong Gewog ( Dzongkha: ཀྲོང་) is a gewog (village block) of Zhemgang District, Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is ...

Environment

Most of Zhemgang District is part of the

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 ...

. Zhemgang's environmentally protected areas include

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 ...

(the ''gewog'' of

Trong Terong ( Jawi: تروڠ; zh, 直弄) is a mukim in Larut, Matang and Selama District, Perak, Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territo ...

) and

Royal Manas National Park Royal Manas National Park is Bhutan's oldest national park, and the Royal government considers it the "conservation showpiece of the Kingdom" and a "genetic depository" for valuable plants. It has an area of and covers eastern Sarpang District ...

(the ''gewogs'' of Ngangla, Pangkhar and

), which occupy much of the west. These parks connect to

Phrumsengla National Park Phrumsengla National Park (Dzongkha: ཕུརམ་སེང་ལ་རྒྱལ་ཡོངས་གླིང་ག), formerly Thrumshingla National Park, in central Bhutan covers just over across four districts of Bhutan, districts, but pr ...

in the north (the ''gewogs'' of Nangkor and Shingkhar) via a

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 ...

that bisects Zhemgang.

References

External links

Zhemgang Dzongkhag official website
Districts of Bhutan {{Bhutan-geo-stub