A Brief History of Bhutan: Isolation, Buddhism, and the Wangchuck Dynasty
Bhutan sits in the Eastern Himalayas between India and Tibet, and for centuries it kept itself largely closed to outside contact by choice rather than circumstance. That isolation shaped a distinct national identity, built on a Buddhist heritage that still defines daily life across the country. With a population of around 700,000 and a land area close to Switzerland’s, Bhutan is the only country in the world where Mahayana Buddhism is the state religion. The tradition’s emphasis on protecting all living beings is one reason Bhutan has kept so much of its forest cover and wildlife intact.
Bhutan was never colonized, and contact with the wider world stayed limited well into the 20th century. Buddhism first took root here in the 8th century, brought by the Indian master Padmasambhava, known in Tantric Buddhism as Guru Rinpoche. The next major turning point came in 1616, when Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, head of the Drukpa Kagyu school, arrived from Tibet and went on to unify Bhutan’s fractured regions under a single system of government — laying the groundwork for the country as it exists today.
In 1907, an assembly bringing together Buddhist clergy, government officials, and representatives of the people chose Gongsar Ugyen Wangchuck as Bhutan’s first hereditary king, starting the Wangchuck dynasty that still rules the country. Nearly a century later, in 2006, the fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, announced he would step down in favor of a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. Two years after that, in 2008 — the centenary of the monarchy — Bhutan held its first democratic elections and crowned its fifth king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck.
