Ngalop

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The Ngalop comprise the largest ethnic group of Bhutan, and as they control the government and the culture, the are more often simply identified as the Bhutanese. Orientalists historically called them the Bhote, meaning they were from Bhotia, or Tibet. This term was also applied to the Tibetan people, leading to confusion, and now is rarely used.

The Ngalop are concentrated in the western and central valleys of Bhutan where they practice Tibetan Buddhism, grow mountain rice, potatoes, barley, and other temperate climate crops, and build large fortress-monasteries known as dzongs. They speak Dzongkha. The king and most of the government are Ngalop, and all citizens of the country are required to follow the national dress code, the driglam namzha, which is Ngalop in origin.

The other significant ethnic groups in Bhutan are:

• The Sharchops, who may have originated in Assam or Burma, who now live in the eastern districts of the country and have largely assimilated theNgalop/Tibetan cultural practices
• The Lhotshampas, the Nepalese who migrated in large numbers to the south of the country as guest workers in the first part of the 20th century (many of whom were forcibly deported in the late 1980s by the Ngalop-led government)
• A small scattering of indigenous people, such as the Lhopu, considered the aboriginal people of Bhutan.