Trongsa, previously Tongsa (, ), is a
Thromde
A thromde (Dzongkha: ཁྲོམ་སྡེ་; Wylie: ''khrom-sde'') is a second-level administrative division in Bhutan. The legal administrative status of thromdes was most recently codified under the Local Government Act of 2009, and the r ...
or town, and the capital of
Trongsa District in central
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...
. The name means "new village" in
Dzongkha
Dzongkha (; ) is a Sino-Tibetan language that is the official and national language of Bhutan. It is written using the Tibetan script.
The word means "the language of the fortress", from ' "fortress" and ' "language". , Dzongkha had 171,080 ...
. The first temple was built in 1543 by the
Drukpa lama Ngagi Wangchuck, who was the great-grandfather of
Ngawang Namgyal,
Zhabdrung Rinpoche, the unifier of Bhutan.
Trongsa Dzong
Chökhor Raptentse Dzong at Trongsa which was built in 1644, used to be the seat of power of the
Wangchuck dynasty
The Wangchuck dynasty () have held the hereditary position of Druk Gyalpo ("Dragon King") of Bhutan since 1907. Prior to reunification, the Wangchuck family had governed the district of Trongsa as descendants of Dungkar Choji. They eventually ov ...
before it became rulers of Bhutan in 1907. Traditionally the
King of Bhutan first becomes the
Trongsa Penlop
Penlop of Trongsa (Dzongkha: ཀྲོང་གསར་དཔོན་སློབ་; Wylie: ''Krong-gsar dpon-slob''), also called Chhoetse Penlop (Dzongkha: ཆོས་རྩེ་དཔོན་སློབ་; Wylie: ''Chos-rtse dpon-slob ...
(
governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
) before being named Crown Prince and eventually King. Built on a mountain spur high above the gorges of the
Mangde Chhu, the
dzong
Dzong architecture is used for dzongs, a distinctive type of fortified monastery ( dz, རྫོང, , ) architecture found mainly in Bhutan and Tibet. The architecture is massive in style with towering exterior walls surrounding a complex of cou ...
controlled east-west trade for centuries. The only road connecting eastern and western Bhutan (the precursor to the modern
Lateral Road), passed through the courtyard of the dzong. At the command of the ''penlop'' the massive doors could be shut, dividing the country in two.
Higher yet on the mountainside is a watchtower, called "Ta Dzong"(watch tower), built to guard the dzong from enemies but now housing a museum and a chapel dedicated to Jigme Namgyal who was Trongsa Penlop from 1853 to 1870.
Sarpang
Sarpang, also transliterated as Sarbhang or Sarbang, is a thromde or town in Sarpang District in southern Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in So ...
just east of the town
File:Trongsa Town.jpg, Trongsa town medical centre
File:TrongsaDzong.jpg, Trongsa Dzong from above to the west of the town
See also
*
Trongsa Dzong
Trongsa Dzong is the largest dzong fortress in Bhutan, located in Trongsa (formerly Tongsa) in Trongsa district, in the centre of the country. Built on a spur overlooking the gorge of the Mangde River, a temple was first established at the location ...
*
Penlop of Trongsa
Penlop of Trongsa ( Dzongkha: ཀྲོང་གསར་དཔོན་སློབ་; Wylie: ''Krong-gsar dpon-slob''), also called Chhoetse Penlop ( Dzongkha: ཆོས་རྩེ་དཔོན་སློབ་; Wylie: ''Chos-rtse dpon-sl ...
*
Trongsa Province
References
{{Coord, 27, 31, N, 90, 30, E, display=title
Populated places in Bhutan
Trongsa District