Villages in Bhutan are made up of groups of individual settlements, grouped together by

chiwog Chiwogs of Bhutan or chios ( dz, སྤྱི་འོག་ ''chio'') refer to the 1044 basic electoral precincts of Bhutan. Chiwogs are also former third-level administrative divisions of Bhutan below ''gewog''s. Until 2009, they were the equi ...

for election purposes. Village populations vary widely, from dozens to hundreds. Generally, greater numbers of villages within chiwogs indicate lower populations in the vast majority of those villages. Villages in Bhutan are governed directly by Gewog (village block) governments, which in turn are subordinate to Dzongkhag (district) or

Dungkhag A dungkhag ( dz, དྲུང་ཁག་ ''drungkhak'') is a sub-district of a dzongkhag (district) of Bhutan. The head of a dungkhag is a ''Dungpa''. As of 2007, nine of the twenty dzongkhags had from one to three dungkhags, with sixteen dungkh ...

(sub-district) governments. Villages in Bhutan may be distinguished from

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 r ...

s (municipalities), which are larger settlements not part of any Chiwog, and which may be self-governing under the Local Government Act of Bhutan 2009. This Act also provides for the redrawing of chiwog borders and regrouping of villages by the Demarcation Commission in order to define relatively equally populated single member constituencies. Village and

demarcations, therefore, are subject to considerable change. Many village names are recurring, and may be shared even among neighboring settlements. Sometimes this indicates a large village spread among more than one chiwog. Geographical names frequently include: ''wom'' ( Dzongkha: འོགམ་; "lower"), ''gom'' (སྒོངམ་; "upper/higher"), ''(kha)toed'' (སྟོད་; "upper

alley An alley or alleyway is a narrow lane, path, or passageway, often reserved for pedestrians, which usually runs between, behind, or within buildings in the older parts of towns and cities. It is also a rear access or service road (back lane ...

), ''(kha)maed'' (སྨད་; "lower

), ''nang'' (ནང་; "inner"), ''-gang'' (སྒང་; "hilltop, ridge"), ''-ling'' (གླིང་; "place"), ''-la'' (ལ་; "mountain pass"), ''-thang'' (ཐང་; "valley"), ''-pelri'' (དཔལ་རི་; "mountain"), ''-chhu'' (ཆུ་; "river"), and ''-dey'' (སྡེ་; "part, section"). Popular name parts also include ''choekhor'' (ཆོས་འཁོར་; "

dharma wheel The dharmachakra (Sanskrit: धर्मचक्र; Pali: ''dhammacakka'') or wheel of dharma is a widespread symbol used in Indian religions such as Hinduism, Jainism, and especially Buddhism.John C. Huntington, Dina Bangdel, ''The Circle o ...

"), ''dekid'' (བདེ་སྐྱིད་; "peace"), ''phel'' (འཕེལ་; "flourish"), ''phuen'' (ཕུན་; "complete, perfect, wonderful"), ''tashi'' (བཀྲ་ཤིས་/བཀྲིས་; "auspicious"), ''goenpa'' (དགོན་པ་; "monastery"), ''lhakhang'' (ལྷ་ཁང་ "temple"), ''pema'' (པདྨ་; "lotus"), and ''norbu'' (ནོར་བུ་; "jewel"). ''entries: 'ogm, 'phel, bkra shis; dpal ri; gling; kha stod; la; nor bu; pad ma; sgang; sde; smad; stod''. Spelling variations are frequent; in government documents certain

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or L ...

s are equivalent: "oo" and "u;" "ay" and "ey;" and in some circumstances, "a" and "e."

List of villages

.Note that this list is based mainly on information of the Election Commission, which not necessarily follows the general RGOB usage. See p.8 of "Change of Names of Post Offices in Bhutan 1962 - present" by Leo van der Velden in Postal Himal, No. 163, 3rd Quarter 2015 https://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/postalhimal/pdf/PH_2015_003.pdf The following are lists of villages in Bhutan by District as of 2011. Slashes indicate names combined names and disambiguations. Parenthetical names are alternative designations and may reflect a Nepali name.

Bumthang District

Chukha District

Dagana District

Gasa District

Haa District

Lhuntse District

Mongar District

Paro District

Pemagatshel District

Punakha District

Samdrup Jongkhar District

Samtse District

Sarpang District

Thimphu District

Trashigang District

Trashiyangtse District

Trongsa District

Tsirang District

Wangdue Phodrang District

Zhemgang District

Table notes

References

{{Bhutan topics

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 ...