Paro District ( Dzongkha: སྤ་རོ་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Spa-ro rdzong-khag'') is a district ('' dzongkhag''), valley, river and town (population 20,000) in

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 mountai ...

. It is one of the most historic valleys in Bhutan. Both trade goods and invading

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...

ans came over the pass at the head of the valley, giving Paro the closest cultural connection with Tibet of any Bhutanese district. The dominant language in Paro is Dzongkha, the national language. Paro contains the only

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries around the world. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports and they must feature longer ...

in Bhutan,

Paro Airport Paro International Airport ( dz, སྤ་རོ་གནམ་ཐང༌།, paro gnam thang) is the sole international airport of the four airports in Bhutan. It is from Paro in a deep valley on the bank of the river Paro Chhu. With surr ...

Geography

Paro District is bordered by

Haa District Haa District ( Dzongkha: ཧཱ་; Wylie: ''Haa''; alternative spellings include "Ha") is one of the 20 dzongkhag or districts comprising Bhutan. An alternative name for the district is "Hidden-Land Rice Valley." It the second least-populat ...

to the west, Tibet to the north,

Thimphu District Thimphu District ( Dzongkha: ཐིམ་ཕུ་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Thim-phu rdzong-khag'') is a dzongkhag (district) of Bhutan. Thimphu is also the capital of Bhutan and the largest city in the whole kingdom. Languages T ...

to the east, and

Chukha District Chukha District ( Dzongkha: ཆུ་ཁ་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Chu-kha rdzong-khag''; also spelled "Chhukha") is one of the 20 dzongkhag (districts) comprising Bhutan. The major town is Phuentsholing which is the gateway ci ...

to the south.

Administrative divisions

Paro Districts comprises ten village blocks (or '' gewogs''): *

Doga Gewog Dokar Gewog ( Dzongkha: རྡོ་དཀར་) is a gewog (village block) of Paro District, Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia ...

Dopshari Gewog Dopshari Gewog ( Dzongkha: རྡོབ་ཤར་རི་) is a gewog (village block) of Paro District, Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in ...

Doteng Gewog Doteng Gewog (Dzongkha: རྡོ་སྟེང་) is a gewog (village block) of Paro District, Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. ...

Hungrel Gewog Hungrel Gewog (Dzongkha: ཧཱུྃ་རལ་) is a gewog (village block) of Paro District, Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. I ...

Lamgong Gewog Lamgong Gewog (Dzongkha: ལམ་གོང་) is a gewog (village block) of Paro District, Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It i ...

* Lungnyi Gewog *

Naja Gewog Naja Gewog (Dzongkha: ན་རྒྱ་) is a gewog (village block) of Paro District, Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situ ...

Shapa Gewog Shapa Gewog (Dzongkha: ཤར་པ་) is a gewog (village block) of Paro District, Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situat ...

* Tsento Gewog *

Wangchang Gewog Wangchang Gewog (Dzongkha: ཝང་ལྕང་) is a gewog (village block) of Paro District, Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It ...

Environment

Northern Paro District (the ''gewogs'' of Doteng and Tsento) contains part of

Jigme Dorji National Park The Jigme Dorji National Park (JDNP), named after the late Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, is the second-largest National Park of Bhutan. It occupies almost the entire Gasa District, as well as the northern areas of Thimphu District, Paro District, Puna ...

and the biological corridor connecting it to Torsa Strict Nature Reserve in neighboring

Cultural sites

Important cultural sites of Paro include: *

Taktshang Paro Taktsang ( dz, སྤ་གྲོ་སྟག་ཚང་, also known as the Taktsang Palphug Monastery and the Tiger's Nest), is a sacred Vajrayana Himalayan Buddhist site located in the cliffside of the upper Paro valley in Bhutan. It ...

, or ''Tiger's Nest'', the most famous monastery and ancient highlights for the people of Bhutan. It was founded as a meditating cave by the famous saint Guru Padmasambhava in the early 8th century upon subjugating a demon and forcing him to take an oath to be the local protector of the region towards the very end. *

Kyichu Lhakhang Kyichu Lhakhang, (also known as Kyerchu Temple or Lho Kyerchu) is an important Himalayan Buddhist temple situated in Lango Gewog of Paro District in Bhutan. History The Jowo Temple of Kyichu is one of the oldest temples in Bhutan, originally bu ...

, which along with

Jambay Lhakhang The Jampa Temple (, THL ''Jampé Lhakhang'') or Temple of Maitreya is located in Bumthang (Jakar) in Bhutan, and is said to be one of the 108 temples built by Tibetan King Songtsen Gampo in 659 CE on a single day, to pin down an ogress to earth ...

in central Bhutan is the oldest temple in Bhutan, dating to the 7th century. * Drukgyel Dzong, at the upper end of the valley, built to protect against invading Tibetans, but in ruins since a fire in the 1950s. * Paro Town, the single market town in the dzonghag which is booming (by Bhutanese standards) due to an influx of tourist dollars. *

Rinpung Dzong Rinpung Dzong, sometimes referred to as Paro Dzong, is a large dzong - Buddhist monastery and fortress - of the Drukpa Lineage of the Kagyu school in Paro District, Bhutan. It houses the district Monastic Body as well as government administrativ ...

, also known as Paro Dzong, the massive fortress/monastery which is also the administrative center of the dzonkhag. Scenes from the movie ''

Little Buddha ''Little Buddha'' is a 1993 drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, written by Rudy Wurlitzer and Mark Peploe, and produced by usual Bertolucci collaborator Jeremy Thomas. An international co-production of Italy, France, and the United Kingd ...

'' were filmed in and around this dzong. *The National Museum of Bhutan, where visitors can learn about the culture of Bhutan.

Economy

Druk Air Drukair Corporation Limited ( dz, འབྲུག་མཁའ་འགྲུལ་ལས་འཛིན།), operating as Drukair — Royal Bhutan Airlines, is the flag carrier of the Kingdom of Bhutan, headquartered in the western dzongkha ...

, the national airline of Bhutan, has its headquarters in Paro.

Paro Indian Military Base

Paro is the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four ...

's second military base outside its territory, the first one being Farkhor Air Base in

Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...

where India also renovated but did not occupy the Ayni Air Base.

References

External links

Paro dzongkhag administration official Web site
{{Authority control Districts of Bhutan