| Total population |
|---|
| 212,500 |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Eastern Bhutan (Lhuntse, Trashiyangtse, Mongar, Pemagatshel, Trashigang, Samdrup Jongkhar) Southwestern China (Tibet) Northeastern India (Assam) |
| Languages |
| Religion |
| Related ethnic groups |
Sharchop (Dzongkha: ཤར་ཕྱོགས་; Wylie: shar-phyogs; "easterner") is a collective term for the populations of mixed Southeast Asian and South Asian descent that live in the eastern districts of Bhutan.
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The Sharchops are an Indo-Mongoloid people who migrated from Assam or possibly Burma during the past 1000 years. Van Driem (1993) indicates the Sharchops and closely related aboriginal Monpa (Menba) are descendants of the plurality ethnicity of Bhutan and the principal pre-Tibetan (pre-Dzongkha) people of that country.[1][2]
The Sharchops comprise most of the population of eastern Bhutan, whose total population in 2010 was about 708,500.[3] Although long the biggest single ethnic group in Bhutan, the Sharchop have been largely assimilated into the culturally and politically dominant Tibetan-Ngalop culture.[4] Together, the Ngalop, Sharchop, and tribal groups constituted up to 72 percent of the population in the late 1980s according to official Bhutanese statistics.[4][5] The 1981 census claimed Sharchops represented 30% of the population, and Ngalops about 17%.[6] The CIA Factbook, however, estimates the "Bhote" Ngalop and Sharchop populations together to total about 50 percent, or 354,200.[3] Assuming Sharchops still outnumber Ngalops some three to two, the total population is around 212,500.
Most Sharchops speak Tshangla, a Tibeto-Burman language; fewer speak Monpa languages.[7] They also learn the national language, Dzongkha. Because of their proximity to India, some speak Assamese or Hindi.
Tshangla is also spoken by the Monpa (Menba) national minority across the border in China, where it is classified as a branch of Monpa, distributed in Mêdog, Nyingchi and Dirang. Tshangla is similar to the language of the Kalaktang Monpa.
Sharchop peoples practice slash-and-burn and tsheri agriculture, planting dry rice crops for three or four years until the soil is exhausted and then moving on,[4] however the practice has been officially banned in Bhutan since 1969.[8][9]
Most Sharchops follow Tibetan Buddhism with some elements of Bön, although those who live in the Duars follow Animism.[4]
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