Sikkim climbs from 280 metres to the world's third-highest summit
India's second-smallest state rises from 280 metres on its southern border to 8,586 metres at the top of Kangchenjunga, the third-highest mountain on Earth. Sikkim packs 28 peaks, more than 80 glaciers and 227 high-altitude lakes into that climb, and for over three centuries it was a Himalayan kingdom ruled by priest-kings.
The land touches Tibet to the north, Bhutan to the east and Nepal to the west, and shares a border with only one Indian state, West Bengal. Snow-fed streams gather into the Teesta River and its tributary the Rangeet, and about a third of the territory is thick forest. Khangchendzonga National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, covers almost 35 percent of it. Hot springs rich in sulphur sit near the riverbanks, with water averaging around 50 degrees Celsius.
Its names carry the region's layered past. Sikkim probably joins Limbu words for new and palace, Tibetans know it as Drenjong, the valley of rice, and the Lepcha, considered its earliest inhabitants, called it paradise. Tradition holds that the Buddhist teacher Padmasambhava passed through in the eighth century. In 1642 three lamas at Yuksom consecrated Phuntsog Namgyal as the first Chogyal, founding a dynasty that would last until 1975.
The kingdom spent centuries squeezed between larger neighbours, suffering raids from Nepal and Bhutan and losing Darjeeling to British India in 1853. A convention with China made it a British protectorate in 1890, and after 1950 India handled its defence and foreign affairs while it kept internal autonomy. Under Chogyal Palden Thondup Namgyal its literacy and income per person were twice those of Nepal, Bhutan and India.
Protests against the monarchy grew in 1973. In April 1975 the Indian Army took over Gangtok, and a referendum then saw 97.5 percent vote to end the monarchy; Sikkim became India's 22nd state on 16 May 1975. China only recognised it as Indian after 2003, and in 2006 the Nathu La pass reopened for trade, closed since the war of 1962.
Source: Sikkim
