Bhutan and its Neutrality

Kingdom of Bhutan (Dzongkha; romanized: Druk Gyal Khap) is a landlocked country in South Asia. Located in the Eastern Himalayas it is bordered by the Tibet Autonomous Region of China in the north the Chumbi Valley of Tibet China and the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal in the west and the Indian states of Assam West Bengal and Arunachal Pradesh in the south and east. Bhutan is geopolitically in South Asia and is the region''s second-least-populous nation after the Maldives. Thimphu is its capital and the largest city while Phuntsholing is its financial center. Much of early Bhutanese history is unclear because most of the records were destroyed when fire ravaged the ancient capital Punakha in 1827. By the 10th century Bhutan''s political development was heavily influenced by its religious history. Various sub-sects of Buddhism emerged that were patronized by the various Mongol warlords. Bhutan may have been influenced by the Yuan dynasty with which it shares various cultural and religious similarities.