Kalimpong is a town and the headquarters of an eponymous district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located at an average elevation of 1,250 metres (4,101 ft). The town is the headquarters of the Kalimpong district. The region comes under Gorkhaland Territorial Administration which is an autonomous governing body within the state of West Bengal. The Indian Army's 27 Mountain Division is located on the outskirts of the city.
Jelep La elevation 14,390 feet (4,390 m), is a high mountain pass between Sikkim, India and Tibet Autonomous Region, China. It is on a route that connects Lhasa to India. The pass is about 4 km (2.5 mi) south of Nathu La and is slightly higher. It was frequently used for trade between Tibet and India during the British Raj, with Kalimpong serving as the contact point. The Menmecho Lake lies below the Jelep La.
Nathu La(Tibetan: རྣ་ཐོས་ལ་, Wylie: Rna thos la, THL: Na tö la, Sikkimese: རྣ་ཐོས་ལ་) is a mountain pass in the Dongkya Range of the Himalayas between China's Yadong County in Tibet, and the Indian states of Sikkim. But minor touch of Bengal in South Asia. The pass, at 4,310 m (14,140 ft), connects the towns of Kalimpong and Gangtok to the villages and towns of the lower Chumbi Valley.
The Siliguri Corridor, also known as the Chicken's Neck, is a stretch of land around the city of Siliguri in West Bengal, India. 20–22 kilometres (12–14 mi) at the narrowest section, this geo-political and geo-economical corridor connects the seven states of northeast India to the rest of the Indian Republic. The countries of Nepal and Bangladesh lie on each side of the corridor and the Kingdom of Bhutan lies at the northern end of the corridor. The Kingdom of Sikkim formerly lay on the northern side of the corridor, until its merging with India in 1975.
Gangtok District is an administrative district of the Indian state of Sikkim. It was renamed in 2021 as a result of administrative reorganisation of the state, which also saw three subdivisions of the East Sikkim district spawned off as a separate Pakyong district.
The history of Sikkim begins with the indigenous Lepcha's contact with early Tibetan settlers. Historically, Sikkim was a sovereign Monarchical State in the eastern Himalayas. Later a protectorate of India followed by a merger with India and official recognition as a state of India. Lepchas were the main inhabitants as well as the Ruler of the land up to 1641. Lepchas are generally considered to be the first people, indigenous to Sikkim also includes Darjeeling.
The Chumbi Valley, called Dromo or Tromo in Tibetan, is a valley in the Himalayas that projects southwards from the Tibetan plateau, intervening between Sikkim and Bhutan. It is coextensive with the administrative unit Yadong County in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. The Chumbi Valley is connected to Sikkim to the southwest via the mountain passes of Nathu La and Jelep La.
Pedong is a town in the Pedong CD block in the Kalimpong subdivision of the Kalimpong district in the Indian state of West Bengal. The town is very close to Resi-Sikkim border. Pedong lies on the National Highway-717A connecting Bagrakote to Gangtok via Pakyong Airport.
Algarah is a town in Lava CD block in the Kalimpong subdivision of the Kalimpong district of West Bengal, India. The town lies on National Highway-717A connecting Bagrakote to Gangtok.
The Sino–Indian border dispute is an ongoing territorial dispute over the sovereignty of two relatively large, and several smaller, separated pieces of territory between China and India. The first of the territories, Aksai Chin, is administered by China and claimed by India; it is mostly uninhabited high-altitude wasteland but with some significant pasture lands at the margins. It lies at the intersection of Kashmir, Tibet and Xinjiang, and is crossed by China's Xinjiang-Tibet Highway; the other disputed territory is south of the McMahon Line, in the area formerly known as the North-East Frontier Agency and now a state called Arunachal Pradesh. It is administered by India and claimed by China. The McMahon Line was signed between British India and Tibet to form part of the 1914 Simla Convention, but the latter was never ratified by China. China disowns the McMahon Line agreement, stating that Tibet was not independent when it signed the Simla Convention.
Bji Gewog is a gewog of Haa District, Bhutan. It is the northernmost gewog of the Haa District, bordering China's Chumbi Valley. The gewog has mostly mountainous terrain, with rivers flowing into Amo Chu in the west and the Ha Chu in the east. China claims a large part of the gewog as its territory and has recently started building roads and villages in the border areas.
Sangbay or Sangbaykha Gewog is a gewog of Haa District, Bhutan. It is one of the western gewogs of the Haa district sharing borders with the Samtse District, India's Sikkim state and China's Chumbi Valley. The latter border has been contested by China, which claims the Doklam region as its territory. In recent years, China has begun to build villages in its claimed area.
Indian Gorkhas, also known as Nepali Indians, are an ethno-cultural group native to India, who speak Nepali as a common language. They inhabit mainly the states of Sikkim, West Bengal, Northeast and Uttarakhand, including their diaspora elsewhere in India and abroad. The modern term "Indian Gorkha" is used to differentiate the Nepali language Speaking Indians from Nepalis.
The Sikkim expedition was an 1888 British military expedition to expel Tibetan forces from the Kingdom of Sikkim. The roots of the conflict lay in British–Tibetan competition for suzerainty over Sikkim.
Gipmochi is a mountain in the Lower Himalayas in south central Asia. Rising to a height of 14,523 feet (4,427 m), the mountain sits on the border between the northern Indian state of Sikkim and Bhutan. China claims Gipmochi as the China–India–Bhutan tri-junction point. Bhutan and India, however, claim that the tri-junction is 6.5 km to the north, at Batang La.
Kalimpong district is a district in the state of West Bengal, India. In 2017, it was carved out as a separate district to become the 21st district of West Bengal.
Doklam, called Donglang by China, is an area in Bhutan with a high plateau and a valley, lying between China's Chumbi Valley to the north, Bhutan's Ha District to the east and India's Sikkim state to the west. It has been depicted as part of Bhutan in the Bhutanese maps since 1961, but it is also claimed by China. The dispute has not been resolved despite several rounds of border negotiations between Bhutan and China. The area is of strategic importance to all three countries.
The 2017 China–India border standoff or Doklam standoff was a military border standoff between the Indian Armed Forces and the People's Liberation Army of China over Chinese construction of a road in Doklam, near a trijunction border area known in Chinese as Donglang, or Donglang Caochang . On 16 June 2017 Chinese troops with construction vehicles and road-building equipment began extending an existing road southward in Doklam, a territory that is claimed by both China and India's ally Bhutan.
Rinchengang (Tibetan: རིན་ཆེན་སྒང, Wylie: rin chen sgang, THL: rin chen gang, ZYPY: Rinqêngang) or Renqinggang (Chinese: 仁青岗村; pinyin: Rén qīng gǎng cūn) is a town in the Chumbi Valley and the headquarters of the Xia Yadong Township of Yadong County, Tibet region of China. It is in the valley of Amo Chu where the route from Sikkim's Jelep La pass meets Amo Chu. It is also close to the Bhutan–China border, which is currently in dispute. In December 2018, Rinchengang village had a population of around 550 people. The inhabitants are engaged in animal grazing or work as forest rangers. Some also carry supplies to Chinese border troops.
Kupup is a hamlet in the Indian state of Sikkim near the border with China. It lies in a transverse valley below the Dongkya Range, close to the Jelep La pass. A nearby moraine ridge across the valley forms part of the watershed between the Teesta and Dichu river basins. To the southeast of the ridge is the lake Bitang Tso, also called the Elephant Lake or Kupup Lake, from which the Dichu river is conventionally believed to originate.
