Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in South Asia, located in the Eastern Himalayas, bordering China's Tibet Autonomous Region to the north and northwest and India to the south and southeast. With a population of over 800,000 (800,871) and a territory of 38,394 square kilometres (14,824 sq mi), Bhutan ranks 133rd in land area and 160th in population. It is a democratic constitutional monarchy with a king as the head of state and a prime minister as the head of government. The Je Khenpo is the head of the state religion, Vajrayana Buddhism.
The Himalayan mountains in the north rise from the country's lush subtropical plains in the south. In the Bhutanese Himalayas, there are peaks higher than 7,000 metres (23,000 ft) above sea level. Gangkhar Puensum is Bhutan's highest peak and is the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. The wildlife of Bhutan is notable for its diversity, including the Himalayan takin and golden langur. The capital and largest city is Thimphu, with close to 15% of the population living there.
Bhutan and neighbouring Tibet experienced the spread of Buddhism, which originated in South Asia during the lifetime of Buddha. In the first millennium, the Vajrayana school of Buddhism spread to Bhutan from the southern Pala Empire of Bengal. During the 16th century, Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal unified the valleys of Bhutan into a single state. He defeated three Tibetan invasions, subjugated rival religious schools, codified the Tsa Yig legal system, and established a government of theocratic and civil administrators. Namgyal became the first Zhabdrung Rinpoche and his successors acted as the spiritual leaders of Bhutan, like the Dalai Lama in Tibet.
Bhutan came under increasing British influence from the British Empire. Bhutan ceded the Bengal Duars to British India during the Duar War in the 19th century. The Wangchuck dynasty emerged as the monarchy and pursued closer ties with Britain in the subcontinent. In 1910, the Treaty of Punakha assured British advice in foreign policy making a protectorate arrangement of a sort although Bhutan never officially became a protectorate. The arrangement continued under a new treaty with India in 1949, signed at Darjeeling, in which both countries recognised each other's sovereignty.
Bhutan joined the United Nations in 1971 and currently has relations with 56 countries. While dependent on the Indian military, Bhutan maintains its own military units. The 2008 Constitution established a parliamentary government with an elected National Assembly and a National Council.
Bhutan is a founding member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), and a member of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, the Non-Aligned Movement, BIMSTEC, the IMF, the World Bank, UNESCO and the World Health Organization (WHO). Bhutan ranked first in SAARC in economic freedom, ease of doing business, peace and lack of corruption in 2016. In 2020, Bhutan ranked third in South Asia after Sri Lanka and the Maldives in the Human Development Index, and 21st on the Global Peace Index as the most peaceful country in South Asia as of 2024, as well as the only South Asian country in the list's first quartile. Bhutan has one of the largest water reserves for hydropower in the world. Melting glaciers caused by climate change are a growing concern in Bhutan.
The precise etymology of "Bhutan" is unknown, although it is likely to derive from the Tibetan endonym "Böd" for Tibet. Traditionally, it is taken to be a transcription of the Sanskrit Bhoṭa-anta (भोट-अन्त) "end of Tibet" through Nepali Bhuṭān (भुटान), a reference to Bhutan's position as the southern extremity of the Tibetan plateau and culture.
Since the 17th century, Bhutan's official name has been Druk yul (literally, "country of the Drukpa Lineage" or "the Land of the Thunder Dragon", a reference to the country's dominant Buddhist sect); "Bhutan" appears only in English-language official correspondence. The terms for the Kings of Bhutan Druk Gyalpo ("Dragon King"), and the Bhutanese endonym Drukpa, "Dragon people", are similarly derived.
Names similar to Bhutan—including Bohtan, Buhtan, Bottanthis, Bottan and Bottanter—began to appear in Europe around the 1580s. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier's 1676 Six Voyages is the first to record the name Boutan. However, these names seem to have referred not to modern Bhutan but to the Kingdom of Tibet. The modern distinction between the two did not begin until well into the Scottish explorer George Bogle's 1774 expedition. Realising the differences between the two regions, cultures, and states, his final report to the East India Company formally proposed calling the Druk Desi's kingdom "Boutan" and the Panchen Lama's kingdom "Tibet". The EIC's surveyor general James Rennell first anglicised the French name as "Bootan" and then popularised the distinction between it and Greater Tibet.
The first time a separate Kingdom of Bhutan appeared on a western map, it did so under its local name "Broukpa". Others include Lho Mon ("Dark Southland"), Lho Tsendenjong ("Southland of the Cypress"), Lhomen Khazhi ("Southland of the Four Approaches") and Lho Menjong ("Southland of the Herbs").
Stone tools, weapons, elephants, and remnants of large stone structures provide evidence that Bhutan was inhabited as early as 2000 BCE, although there are no existing records from that time. Historians have theorised that the state of Lhomon (lit. 'southern darkness'), or Monyul ("Dark Land", a reference to the Monpa, an ethnic group in Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh, India), may have existed between 500 BCE and 600 CE. The names Lhomon Tsendenjong (Sandalwood Country) and Lhomon Khashi or Southern Mon (country of four approaches), have been found in ancient Bhutanese and Tibetan chronicles.
Buddhism was first introduced to Bhutan in the mid of 7th century CE. The Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo (reigned 627–649), a Buddhist convert, extended the Tibetan Empire into Sikkim and Bhutan. He ordered the construction of two Buddhist temples, Jambay Lhakhang in Bumthang in central Bhutan and Kyichu Lhakhang in Paro Valley. Buddhism was propagated in earnest in 746 under King Sindhu Rāja (also Künjom; Sendha Gyab; Chakhar Gyalpo), an exiled Indian king who had established a government in Bumthang at Chakhar Gutho Palace.
By the 10th century, Bhutan's religious history had had a significant influence on its political development. Various subsects of Buddhism emerged that were patronised by the various Mongol warlords.
Bhutan may have been influenced by the Yuan dynasty, with which it shares various cultural and religious similarities.
After the decline of the Yuan dynasty in the 14th century, these subsects vied with each other for supremacy in the political and religious landscape, eventually leading to the ascendancy of the Drukpa Lineage by the 16th century.
Locally, Bhutan has been known by many names. The earliest Western record of Bhutan, the 1627 Relação of the Portuguese Jesuits Estêvão Cacella and João Cabral, records its name variously as Cambirasi (among the Koch Biharis), Potente, and Mon (an endonym for southern Tibet). Until the early 17th century, Bhutan existed as a patchwork of minor warring fiefdoms, when the area was unified by the Tibetan lama and military leader Ngawang Namgyal, who had fled religious persecution in Tibet. To defend the country against intermittent Tibetan forays, Namgyal built a network of impregnable dzongs or fortresses, and promulgated the Tsa Yig, a code of law that helped to bring local lords under centralised control. Many such dzong still exist and are active centres of religion and district administration. Portuguese Jesuits Estêvão Cacella and João Cabral were the first recorded Europeans to visit Bhutan in 1627, on their way to Tibet. They met Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, presented him with firearms, gunpowder and a telescope, and offered him their services in the war against Tibet, but the Zhabdrung declined the offer. After a stay of nearly eight months Cacella wrote a long letter from the Chagri Monastery reporting on his travels. This is a rare extant report of the Zhabdrung.