West Siang (Pron:/ˈsjæŋ or ˈsɪæŋ/) is an administrative district in the state of

Arunachal Pradesh Arunachal Pradesh (, ) is a state in Northeastern India. It was formed from the erstwhile North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) region, and became a state on 20 February 1987. It borders the states of Assam and Nagaland to the south. It shares int ...

in India.

History

In 1989, territory was given from West Siang to the East Siang district. Since 1999, this territory has been in the new

Upper Siang district Upper Siang (Pron:/ˈsjæŋ or ˈsɪæŋ/) is an administrative district in the state of Arunachal Pradesh in India. It is the fourth least populous district in the country (out of 640). History The majority of the people are of the Adi trib ...

. Archaeological finds from

Malinithan Malinithan is an archaeological site containing the ruins of an early medieval period temple on the northern bank of the Brahmaputra River in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. It is assumed to be built by the Chutia kings in the 13th-1 ...

in West Siang are on display at the Jawaharlal Nehru Museum, Itanagar. It was once a part of the

Chutiya kingdom The Chutia Kingdom (also Sadiya) was a late medieval state that developed around Sadiya in present Assam and adjoining areas in Arunachal Pradesh."(T)he Chutiyas seem to have assumed political power in Sadiya and contiguous areas falling ...

. West Siang was divided into Upper Siang and Lower Siang. West Siang district was bifurcated on 9 December 2018 when northern areas along China border were made a separate

Shi Yomi district Shi Yomi district is one of the 23 districts of Arunachal Pradesh state in northeastern India. Shi-Yomi district was created on 9 December 2018 by dividing the West Siang district when northern areas along the China border were made into a newl ...

Geography

The district headquarters is located at Aalo. West Siang district occupies an area of , comparatively equivalent to

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cypru ...

Transport

The proposed Mago-

Thingbu Thingbu is a settlement in Tawang district in the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, India. Location It is located on the proposed Mago-Thingbu to Vijaynagar Arunachal Pradesh Frontier Highway along the McMahon Line, alignment map ...

to Vijaynagar Arunachal Pradesh Frontier Highway along the McMahon Line will intersect with the proposed East-West Industrial Corridor Highway and will pass through this district, alignment map of which can be see
here
an
here

Divisions

There are seven

Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly The Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly is the unicameral state legislature of Arunachal Pradesh state in north-eastern India. The seat of the Legislative Assembly is at Itanagar, the capital of the state. The Legislative Assembly compris ...

constituencies in this district:

Liromoba Liromoba is a village and the headquarters of Liromoba-Yomcha tehsil in West Siang district in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Civic Administration At a state level, the village is represented in the Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly ...

Likabali Likabali, a town in the foothills, is the Headquarters of Lower Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh in the Arunachal Pradesh state of India. The town is part of the Likabali (Vidhan Sabha constituency) Likabali is one of the 60 assembly cons ...

, Basar, Along West, Along East,

Rumgong Rumgong is a village in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Siang is the name of the district that contains village Rumgong. Rumgong is a Tehsil and is located 24 km towards west from District headquarters Boleng, 209 km from state ...

, and

Mechuka Mechukha or Menchukha (In Memba dialect, 'Men' means Medicine, 'Chu' means Water -streams, rivers, etc. & 'Kha' means Snow; Meaning "the land blessed with medicinal snow-fed water- river & streams") is a town, assembly constituency and subdivis ...

. The first six are part of

Arunachal West Lok Sabha constituency Arunachal West Lok Sabha constituency is one of the two Lok Sabha (lower house of the Indian Parliament) constituencies in Arunachal Pradesh state in northeastern India. This constituency covers the entire Tawang, West Kameng, East Kameng, Papu ...

, while Mechuka is part of Arunachal East Lok Sabha constituency.

Demographics

Population

According to the 2011 Census, West Siang district has a population of 112,274, roughly equal to the nation of

Grenada Grenada ( ; Grenadian Creole French: ) is an island country in the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea at the southern end of the Grenadines island chain. Grenada consists of the island of Grenada itself, two smaller islands, Carriacou and ...

. This gives it a ranking of 612th in India (out of a total of

640 Year 640 ( DCXL) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 640 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the pr ...

). The district has a population density of . Its population growth rate over the decade 2001–2011 was 8.04%. West Siang has a sex ratio of 916 females for every 1000 males, and a

literacy rate Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...

of 67.62%. After bifurcation the residual West Siang district has a population of 58,182. Scheduled Tribes make up 46,204 (79.41%). Various tribal groups of the

Adi Adi or ADI may refer to: Names and titles * Adi (mythology), an Asura in Hindu faith who appears in the Matsya Purāṇa * Adi (name), a given name in Hebrew and a nickname in other languages * Adi (title), a Fijian title used by females of chi ...

Memba The Memba are a people of Arunachal Pradesh. The Memba population is currently around four to five thousand. They mainly live in the districts of Shi Yomi, West Siang and Upper Siang. Some also in nearby Tibet. The religious life of the Memba ...

, and Khamba tribes live in the district. The Adi generally follow

Donyi-Polo Donyi-Polo (also Donyi-Poloism) is the designation given to the indigenous religion, of animistic and shamanic type, of the Tani and other Tibeto-Burman peoples of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in Northeast India. The name "Donyi-Polo" means "S ...

, although some have embraced

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul com ...

Christianity in recent years. The Memba and Khamba are followers of Tibetan Buddhism.

Languages

Languages spoken include

, a

Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...

tongue with approximately 140 000 speakers, written in both the

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...

and Latin scripts; and Galo, an

endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a "dead lang ...

with 30 000 speakers, also in the Sino-Tibetan

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...

. 70.41% of the population spoke Galo, 6.65%

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

, 3.18%

Nepali Nepali or Nepalese may refer to : Concerning Nepal * Anything of, from, or related to Nepal * Nepali people, citizens of Nepal * Nepali language, an Indo-Aryan language found in Nepal, the current official national language and a language spoken ...

, 2.75%

, 2.63%

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

, 2.34% Assamese, 2.17%

Bhojpuri Bhojpuri (;Bhojpuri entry, Oxford Dictionaries
, Oxford U ...

and 1.68% Miniyong as their first language.

Flora and fauna

The district is rich in wildlife. Rare mammals such as

Mishmi takin The Mishmi takin (''Budorcas taxicolor taxicolor'') is an endangered goat-antelope native to India, Myanmar and the People's Republic of China. It is a subspecies of takin. The Mishmi takin lives in Northeast India and eats bamboo and will ...

Snow leopard The snow leopard (''Panthera uncia''), also known as the ounce, is a felid in the genus '' Panthera'' native to the mountain ranges of Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because the global population is es ...

Red panda The red panda (''Ailurus fulgens''), also known as the lesser panda, is a small mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China. It has dense reddish-brown fur with a black belly and legs, white-lined ears, a mostly white muzzle ...

s, and

Musk deer Musk deer can refer to any one, or all seven, of the species that make up ''Moschus'', the only extant genus of the family Moschidae. Despite being commonly called deer, they are not true deer belonging to the family Cervidae, but rather their f ...

occur while among birds there is the rare Blyth's Tragopan. A flying squirrel, new to science, has been recently discovered from this district. It has been named as

Mechuka Giant Flying Squirrel The Mechuka giant flying squirrel (''Petaurista mechukaensis'') is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae. First described in 2007 from East Himalayan forests at altitudes of in the region of Mechuka of north-central Arunachal Pradesh i ...

.Choudhury,Anwaruddin (2007).A new flying squirrel of the genus Petaurista Link from Arunachal Pradesh in north-east India. The Newsletter and Journal of the RhinoFoundation for nat. in NE India 7: 26–34, plates. In 1991, West Siang became home to the Kane

Wildlife Sanctuary A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or o ...

, which has an area of .

References

External links

* {{Coord, 28, 24, N, 94, 33, E, region:IN_type:adm2nd, display=title Districts of Arunachal Pradesh