Bhutan or the land of the Thunder Dragon is one of the most highly acclaimed travel destinations. This is a land of remarkable natural beauty with a pristine and intact environment and a friendly, tradition-bound people. To the discerning international traveler, Bhutan has become an exotic and enticing final frontier. Bhutan 's present travel status comes as no surprise given that this tiny kingdom, the size of Switzerland , was zealously sequestered from the world for centuries. The door to this mythical Buddhist kingdom was opened to limited tourism only three decades ago.
About Bhutan
The Kingdom of Bhutan covers a land area of 46,500 square kilometers. The land lies between latitudes 26o 45’ N and 28o 10’ N and between longitude 88o 45’ E and 92o 10’ E. The country has a maximum latitudinal distance of 170 kilometers and maximum longitudinal distance of 300 kilometers.
Bhutan is almost entirely mountainous with flat land limited to the meandering border river valleys. The land rises from approximately 300 meters above the sea level in the south to the towering Himalayan mountains in the north of over 7,400 meters high. The densely populated central valleys are separated from the south by a 2,000 meter high chain of mountain within a distance of less than 175 km.
Bhutan has three major landform features: the southern foothills: the inner Himalayas and the higher Himalayas. The southern foothill rises from the plains to heights of about 1,500 meters extending to the north by about 20 kilometers. Southern Bhutan consists of a heavy network of steep hills covered with large tract of dense forest and jungles.
