Chukha district | |
Native Name: | ཆུ་ཁ་རྫོང་ཁག |
Settlement Type: | District |
Subdivision Type: | Country |
Subdivision Name: | Bhutan |
Seat Type: | Headquarters |
Seat: | Chukha |
Unit Pref: | Metric |
Area Total Km2: | 1,880 |
Population Total: | 68,966 |
Population As Of: | 2017 |
Population Density Km2: | auto |
Blank Name Sec2: | HDI (2019) |
Blank Info Sec2: | 0.684[1] · 4th |
Timezone1: | BTT |
Utc Offset1: | +6 |
Chukha District (Dzongkha: ཆུ་ཁ་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: Chu-kha rdzong-khag; officially spelled "Chhukha" [2]) is one of the 20 dzongkhag (districts) comprising Bhutan. The major town is Phuentsholing which is the gateway city along the sole road which connects India to western Bhutan (cf. Lateral Road). Chukha is the commercial and the financial capital of Bhutan. With Bhutan's oldest hydropower plant, Chukha hydel (completed in 1986–88), and Tala Hydroelectricity Project, the country's largest power plant, Chukha is the dzongkhag which contributes the most to the GDP of the country. Also located in Chukha district are some of the country's oldest industrial companies like the Bhutan Carbide Chemical Limited (BCCL) and the Bhutan Boards Products Limited (BBPL).
In Chukha, the main native languages are Dzongkha, the national language, and Nepali, spoken by the Lhotshampa in the south. The Bhutanese Lhokpu language, spoken by the Lhop minority, is also present in the southwest along the border with Samtse District.
Chukha District is divided into eleven village blocks (or gewogs):[3]
Chukha Dzongkhag covers 1,880 sq. km,[4] but unlike most other districts, Chukha, along with Samtse, contain no protected areas of Bhutan. Although much of southern Bhutan contained protected areas in the 1960s, park-level environmental protection became untenable.[5] [6]