Phuentsholing Gewog

Bhutan Paralympic Committee

The Bhutan Paralympic Committee, established in 2017, is the national body responsible for developing disability sport in Bhutan and fielding athletes at the Paralympic Games. Bhutan made its Paralympic debut at Tokyo 2020.

Amochhu River

The Amochhu, also called the Toorsa or Torsa, is the westernmost major river of Bhutan. Rising in the Chumbi Valley of Tibet, it flows through Haa and Samtse before entering West Bengal as the Torsa, draining a sparsely populated and steeply incised western corridor.

Wangchhu River

The Wangchhu, known as the Raidak below the Bhutanese border, is the principal river of western Bhutan. Rising in Tibet and flowing through Thimphu and Chukha before entering West Bengal, it has been the backbone of Bhutan's hydropower programme since the 1980s.

Bhutan Premier League

The Bhutan Premier League (BPL) is the top tier of professional association football in Bhutan, established in 2012 by the Bhutan Football Federation. The league's champions qualify for the AFC Cup or, more recently, the AFC Challenge League. Paro FC has dominated the competition since 2019, winning seven titles to 2025.

Central Regional Referral Hospital, Gelephu

The Central Regional Referral Hospital (CRRH), Gelephu, is the principal tertiary-care facility for southern and south-central Bhutan, located in Gelephu in Sarpang dzongkhag. Upgraded from a district hospital to regional referral status in 2005 with 60 beds and expanded to 100 beds in 2007, it now operates as a 150-bed facility serving Sarpang, Tsirang, Dagana and Zhemgang.

Druk PNB Bank

Druk PNB Bank Limited is a Bhutanese commercial bank, established in 2010 as a joint venture between Punjab National Bank of India (51 percent) and Bhutanese investors (49 percent). It was the first foreign-invested bank in Bhutan and the country's fourth licensed commercial bank, with branches in seven dzongkhag headquarters.

Gedu College of Business Studies

Gedu College of Business Studies (GCBS) is a constituent college of the Royal University of Bhutan located at Gedu in Chukha dzongkhag at an altitude of around 2,500 metres. It was established in 2008 in former buildings of the Tala Hydropower Project township and is the principal undergraduate business school in the country.

Punatsangchhu-II Hydropower Project

The Punatsangchhu-II Hydroelectric Project (PHPA-II) is a 1,020 MW run-of-the-river hydropower scheme on the Punatsangchhu river in Wangdue Phodrang dzongkhag, downstream of Punatsangchhu-I. Launched in 2010 and originally targeted for completion in 2018, its first units were synchronised in December 2024, with the final unit connected to the grid in August 2025.

Chukha Hydropower Project

The Chukha Hydropower Project is a 336 MW run-of-the-river hydroelectric station on the Wangchhu river in Chukha dzongkhag, commissioned between 1986 and 1988. Financed and built by India under a 60 percent grant and 40 percent loan arrangement, it was Bhutan's first major hydropower facility and remains a foundational element of the kingdom's power export economy.

Dasho Benji (Paljor J. Dorji)

Dasho Paljor Jigme Dorji, widely known as Dasho Benji, is a Bhutanese conservationist, judge and diplomat born in 1943. He founded the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature in 1987, served as the first Chief Justice of the High Court of Bhutan, and is often described as the founding figure of organised environmentalism in the country.

Chhukha District

Chhukha District (Dzongkha: ཆུ་ཁ་རྫོང་ཁག) is a district in southwestern Bhutan and one of the most economically important regions in the country, home to the Chhukha Hydropower Plant and the border town of Phuntsholing, which serves as Bhutan's principal commercial gateway to India.

Tobacco Control Act of Bhutan

The Tobacco Control Act of Bhutan, passed by Parliament on 6 June 2010 and brought into force on 16 June 2010, banned the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of tobacco products throughout the country and was widely described as one of the strictest tobacco laws in the world. Building on a 2004 National Assembly resolution that had already prohibited tobacco sales, the Act criminalised possession above modest personal-import limits and triggered a high-profile prosecution of a young monk, Sonam Tshering, in 2011. Public outcry forced amendments in 2012 and a sweeping reversal in 2021, when retail sales were legalised through licensed outlets.

Thimphu Becomes the Capital of Bhutan (1955–1961)

The relocation of Bhutan's capital from Punakha to Thimphu between 1955 and 1961, under the Third King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, ending more than three centuries in which Punakha Dzong had served as the country's administrative seat.

Bhutanese Refugee Crisis

The Bhutanese refugee crisis is the displacement of roughly 100,000 ethnic Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa from southern Bhutan in the early 1990s, their two-decade stay in seven UNHCR camps in eastern Nepal, and a third-country resettlement programme that moved more than 113,000 people to eight Western states between 2007 and 2016. Its contemporary tail is the 2025 deportation by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement of resettled Lhotshampa to a Bhutan that refused to readmit them.

Lateral Road of Bhutan

The Lateral Road is Bhutan's main east-west highway, stretching approximately 570 kilometers from Phuentsholing in the southwest to Trashigang in the east. Constructed primarily by the Indian Border Roads Organisation (BRO, Project Dantak) beginning in the 1960s, the road traverses some of the most challenging terrain in the Himalayas, crossing multiple mountain passes above 3,000 meters. It remains the most important road in Bhutan and a lifeline connecting the country's scattered communities.

Ashi Kesang Choden Wangchuck

Ashi Kesang Choden Wangchuck (born 21 May 1930) is the Gyalyum (Royal Grandmother) of Bhutan, widow of the Third Druk Gyalpo Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, mother of the Fourth King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, and paternal grandmother of the reigning Fifth King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. A daughter of the Dorji family of Bhutan and Sikkim, she has been a central figure in the Wangchuck dynasty for more than seven decades.

Tenzing Lamsang

Tenzing Lamsang is a Bhutanese investigative journalist, founder and editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper The Bhutanese, and president of the Journalists' Association of Bhutan. He is one of the most widely cited independent voices in the Bhutanese press.

Neten Zangmo

Dasho Neten Zangmo (born 1961) is a Bhutanese government official and politician who served as the first chairperson of the Anti-Corruption Commission of Bhutan from 2006 to 2016. She later led the Bhutan Kuen-Nyam Party as its president from 2017 to 2018.

Sangay Tsheltrim

Sangay Tsheltrim (born 1982) is a former captain of the Royal Bhutanese Army who became Bhutan's most internationally recognised actor, with roles in Bollywood blockbusters including Radhe (2021) and Jawan (2023). He is also Bhutan's foremost competitive bodybuilder.

Public Transport in Bhutan

Bhutan has a limited but evolving public transport network shaped by its mountainous terrain, sparse population, and the absence of a railway system. The primary modes of public transit include government-regulated bus services operated by the Road Safety and Transport Authority, the Bhutan Post Bus service, Thimphu city buses, inter-district bus routes, and a taxi system. Tourists primarily rely on hired vehicles arranged through licensed tour operators. Ongoing road infrastructure development and the introduction of electric vehicles are gradually modernising the sector.