Samtse District

Samtse District is one of the 20 dzongkhags comprising Bhutan.History and cultureHistorically, Samtse was sparsely populated as the mountain-dwelling Bhutanese considered the low-lying district to be prone to tropical disease. During the early 20th century the district experienced a large influx of Nepali people who were invited to the area to assist in forest-clearing. Overall the district population has recently been increasing and there have been housing shortages in Samtse as reported by Kuensel.Samtse is also home to the Lhop (Doya) people, a little-studied ethnic group of approximately 2,500 persons. The Bhutanese believe them to be the aboriginals who predated the Tibetan migration from the north. The Lhop are noted for their animistic religious beliefs, their practice of marrying cross-cousins, and their unique burial customs.Samtse is also well known historically for being the home of the Gurung Kazi Family who governed the region in the early 1900s till the 1960s.LanguagesThe dominant language in Samtse District is Nepali, spoken by the heterogeneous Lhotshampa community, though speakers of Dzongkha, the national language, inhabit the district's eastern reaches. Samtse is also home to some of the autochthonous communities of Bhutan, pre-dating the arrival of Nepali and Dzongkha speakers. Lepcha is spoken by some 2,000 people in northeastern Samtse, and Lhokpu is spoken by some 2,500 people along the border with Chukha District.