Trashiyangtse District

Trashiyangtse District (Dzongkha: བཀྲ་ཤིས་གཡང་རྩེ་རྫོང་ཁག; also romanised Tashiyangtse) is one of the twenty dzongkhags of Bhutan, occupying the country's north-eastern corner along the border with the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. It covers approximately 1,438 square kilometres of steeply folded terrain, rising from subtropical valleys at around 500 metres in the south to alpine ridges above 5,400 metres in the north.^[1] The district is administered from the small town of Trashiyangtse and, with a population of about 16,600 recorded in the 2023 census, is among the most sparsely settled and remote parts of the kingdom.^[2]

Trashiyangtse is best known for three things: Chorten Kora, a large Tibetan-style stupa that draws pilgrims from Bhutan and the neighbouring Tawang region of India; Bomdeling Wildlife Sanctuary, a wintering ground for the vulnerable black-necked crane; and a centuries-old craft of wood-turning, shagzo, that produces the bowls and cups known as dapa and phob.^[3] The district is also home to one of the two campuses of the National Institute for Zorig Chusum, which trains students in Bhutan's thirteen traditional arts and crafts.

History and administration

Trashiyangtse was established as a separate dzongkhag in 1992, when it was detached from the larger Trashigang District during a national administrative reorganisation that fixed Bhutan's present total of twenty districts.^[1] Before that, the area had long been associated with the dzong at Trashiyangtse and with trade and pilgrimage routes linking eastern Bhutan to Tibet and to Tawang.

The district is divided into eight gewogs (village-block groups): Bumdeling, Jamkhar, Khamdang, Ramjar, Toedtsho, Tongmijangsa, Yalang and Yangtse.^[4] Administration is exercised by the Dzongkhag Administration under a dzongdag (district administrator) appointed by the central government, alongside an elected Dzongkhag Tshogdu (district council).

Geography and biodiversity

The district's extreme range of elevation gives it an unusually wide spread of habitats, from warm broadleaf forest in the river valleys to fir forest and alpine meadow on the high northern frontier. Much of northern Trashiyangtse falls within Bomdeling Wildlife Sanctuary, a protected area of some 1,500 square kilometres that holds one of the richest temperate fir forests in the eastern Himalayas and shelters tigers, leopards, red pandas, Himalayan black bears and barking deer.^[5]

Each winter the wetlands around Bomdeling become a roosting ground for several hundred black-necked cranes, which migrate from the Tibetan plateau. The cranes are the focus of conservation attention and of local belief, and their arrival and departure are watched closely by the community.^[5]

Economy and crafts

Like most of eastern Bhutan, Trashiyangtse has a largely subsistence economy built on terraced agriculture, livestock and forest produce, supplemented by small-scale trade. Its distinctive contribution to the national economy is craft. The district is the heartland of shagzo, the art of wood-turning, whose master craftsmen — the shagzopa — turn burls and softwoods on a hand-powered lathe into the lacquered bowls (dapa) and cups (phob) used across Bhutan.^[3]

This tradition is taught formally at the Trashiyangtse campus of the National Institute for Zorig Chusum, which, like its sister institute in Thimphu, instructs students in the thirteen traditional arts and crafts and helps sustain the wood-turning and painting skills for which the district is known.^[1]

Culture

The district's defining landmark is Chorten Kora, a whitewashed stupa standing on the bank of the Kulong Chu below Trashiyangtse town. It was built in the eighteenth century by Lama Ngawang Lodro and is said to be modelled on the great Boudhanath stupa in Kathmandu.^[6] Each year it is the site of the Chorten Kora festival, when pilgrims — including members of the Dakpa community from across the border in Tawang — perform kora, walking in circumambulation around the monument over two distinct observances.^[6]

Trashiyangtse's population is ethnically and linguistically mixed, including Tshangla (Sharchop) speakers and the Dakpa, reflecting the district's position at the meeting point of eastern Bhutanese and trans-Himalayan cultural worlds.

References

1. "Trashiyangtse District." Wikipedia.
2. "Bhutan: Administrative Division — Trashiyangtse." City Population (citing the National Statistics Bureau of Bhutan).
3. "The Practice of Dapa Making: A Case Study from Trashiyangtse in Bhutan."
4. "Gewogs." Dzongkhag Administration, Trashiyangtse.
5. "Bumdeling Wildlife Sanctuary." Wikipedia.
6. "Chorten Kora, Trashi Yangtse."