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 ...

was founded and unified as a country by Ngawang Namgyal, 1st Zhabdrung Rinpoche in the mid–17th century. After his death in 1651, Bhutan nominally followed his recommended "

dual system of government The Dual System of Government is the traditional diarchal political system of Tibetan peoples whereby the Desi (temporal ruler) coexists with the spiritual authority of the realm, usually unified under a third single ruler. The actual distribut ...

". Under the dual system, government control was split between a secular leader, the

Druk Desi The Druk Desi (Dzongkha: འབྲུག་སྡེ་སྲིད་; Wylie:'' 'brug sde-srid''; also called " Deb Raja")The original title is Dzongkha: སྡེ་སྲིད་ཕྱག་མཛོད་; Wylie: ''sde-srid phyag-mdzod''. wa ...

(, aka ''Deb Raja'');The original title is ་; . and a religious leader, the Je Khenpo (). Both the Druk Desi and Je Khenpo were under the nominal authority of the Zhabdrung Rinpoche, a reincarnation of Ngawang Namgyal. In practice however, the Zhabdrung was often a child under the control of the Druk Desi, and regional

penlop Penlop (Dzongkha: དཔོན་སློབ་; Wylie: ''dpon-slob''; also spelled Ponlop, Pönlop) is a Dzongkha term roughly translated as governor. Bhutanese penlops, prior to unification, controlled certain districts of the country, but now ...

s often administered their districts in defiance of the power of the Druk Desis until the rise of the unified

Wangchuck dynasty The Wangchuck dynasty () have held the hereditary position of Druk Gyalpo ("Dragon King") of Bhutan since 1907. Prior to reunification, the Wangchuck family had governed the district of Trongsa as descendants of Dungkar Choji. They eventually ov ...

in 1907. Since the rise of the unified Wangchuck family in 1907, the

Druk Gyalpo 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 ...

(; lit. "

Dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted a ...

King") have been the

head of state A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and ...

of the

Kingdom of 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 ...

Druk Desis (1650–1905)

Below appears the list of

s throughout the existence of the office. Officeholders were initially appointed by

Zhabdrung Zhabdrung (also Shabdrung; ; "before the feet of ones submit") was a title used when referring to or addressing great lamas in Tibet, particularly those who held a hereditary lineage. In Bhutan the title almost always refers to Ngawang Namgyal (159 ...

Ngawang Namgyal, though after his death the Je Khenpo and civil government decided appointments. Italics indicate coregencies and caretaker governments, which are not traditionally separately numbered. Chogley Tulku, Deb Raja of Bhutan, 1905

Kings of Bhutan (1907–present)

The Bhutanese monarchy was established on 17 December 1907, unifying the country under the control of the

, hereditary ''

s'' (governors) of

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 ...

district. The king of Bhutan, formally known as the

("Dragon King"), also occupies the office of Druk Desi under the

. Since the enactment of the Constitution of 2008, the Druk Gyalpo has remained

, while the Prime Minister of Bhutan acts as executive and

head of government The head of government is the highest or the second-highest official in the executive branch of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presides over a cabinet, a ...

in a

parliamentary democracy A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of t ...

under a

constitutional monarchy A constitutional monarchy, parliamentary monarchy, or democratic monarchy is a form of monarchy in which the monarch exercises their authority in accordance with a constitution and is not alone in decision making. Constitutional monarchies dif ...

Timeline

ImageSize = width:1600 height:auto barincrement:35 PlotArea = top:20 bottom:30 right:280 left:60 AlignBars = justify DateFormat = yyyy Period = from:1905 till:2025 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10 start:1905 ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:10 start:1910 Colors = id:canvas value:rgb(1,1,1) id:s value:yellow id:h value:blue id:sx value:red id:w value:green id:eon value:blue Backgroundcolors = canvas:canvas BarData = barset:Rulers bar:eon PlotData= align:center textcolor:black fontsize:40 mark:(line,black) width:45 shift:(0,-5) bar:eon color:eon width:10 align:left fontsize:S shift:(5,-4) anchor:till barset:Rulers from: 1907 till: 1926 color:h text:" Ugyen" from: 1926 till: 1952 color:h text:" Jigme" from: 1952 till: 1972 color:h text:"

Jigme Dorji Dasho Jigme Palden Dorji (14 December 1919 – 6 April 1964) was a Bhutanese politician and member of the Dorji family. By marriage, he was also a member of the House of Wangchuck. The brother-in-law of Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, Dorji was c ...

" from: 1972 till: 2006 color:h text:" Jigme Singye" from: 2006 till: end color:h text:" Jigme Khesar Namgyel"

Druk Desis (1650–1905)

Kings of Bhutan (1907–present)

Timeline

See also

Notes

References

Further reading