Principal languages: Bhotes speak various Tibetan dialects, esp. Dzongkha (official); Nepalese speak various Nepalese dialects
Principal religions: Lamaistic Buddhism 75%, Indian- and Nepalese-influenced Hinduism 25%
Rank of affluence among U.N. members: 174/183
Isolated and mountainous, Bhutan is a small Himalayan kingdom that has long avoided contact with foreigners. In 1774 the British East India Company negotiated a trade agreement with the king, and by 1910 Bhutan had become a British protectorate. Independence followed India's in 1949, but due to the rugged terrain it was not until the 1960s that a road was constructed from the Indian frontier.
King Jigme Singye Wangchuk inherited the throne in 1972 and began bringing the country slowly into the 20th century, abolishing slavery and the caste system and attempting to modernize the economy, while protecting its Buddhist-dominated culture from Western influence. Bhutan restricts foreign visitors to 2,000 a year, prohibits Western clothing (on Bhutanese), and has set aside vast tracts of forest as national parks. Most Bhutanese still live in small villages scattered among the mountain valleys, their communal lives dominated by traditional Buddhist monasteries, called dzongs.
In recent years the government has created secular schools, modernized irrigation systems, and supported the development of a manufacturing belt along the Indian border... startling changes in a country that had no currency (only a barter system) until the 1960s. Yet Bhutan remains staggeringly primitive. Even by south Asian standards life expectancy is low and infant mortality is high; the incidence of malaria, influenza, tuberculosis, and parasitic infections is high; expanding herds and rising demand for fuel threaten to strip the valleys bare.
How long the sounds of Tibetan horns and chanting monks will continue to resonate through these mountains depends upon how successfully the Bhutanese government can balance development, culture, and the fragile environment.
