POPULATION 692,000
NYINGMAPA BUDDHIST 45 percent
DRUKPA KAGYUDPA BUDDHIST 40 percent
HINDU 14 percent
OTHER 1 percent

Country Overview

Introduction

The Kingdom of Bhutan, sandwiched between India and China, is the only independent Buddhist state in the Himalayas. Roughly the size of Switzerland, it has a population estimated to be less than 700,000 and is composed of three major ethnic groups speaking about 19 different languages. Well known for its policy of isolation and conservation, Bhutan today is celebrated for its thriving Buddhist culture and for its ethnolinguistic and ecological diversity.

The Indian saint Padmasambhava, who remains the most important spiritual figure in Bhutan, first brought Buddhism from the south in the eighth century. In the following centuries Buddhism came from the north through Tibetan missionaries, who disseminated Buddhist teachings across the country and firmly established it as the faith of the land. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries immigrants from Nepal brought Hinduism to...