Trashigang

Trashigang is Bhutan's eastern anchor—the kingdom's largest district by area, historically the terminus of trade routes from Tibet and now the junction where the east-west highway meets roads connecting to India via Samdrup Jongkhar. The district almost touches Arunachal Pradesh, positioning it at the intersection of Bhutanese, Tibetan, and Indian cultural zones. Trashigang town on the banks of the Dangmechhu River once processed trade that made eastern Bhutan wealthy; modern road connections redirect commerce but cannot erase geographic logic. The district's fifteen gewogs across three sub-districts contain some of Bhutan's most celebrated weavers—Radhi village, 25 kilometers from town, is nicknamed the 'Weaving Capital of Bhutan.' During agricultural off-seasons, women produce bura (raw silk) textiles of quality prized throughout the kingdom, a cottage industry that supplements marginal farming on mountain slopes. The village's 749 households spread across 29 square kilometers also cultivate the rice that earned the area its 'Rice Bowl of the East' designation. Yongphula Airport, redeveloped from a 1960s military airfield and reopened in 2012, provides domestic flights that theoretically improve eastern accessibility—though challenging terrain limits operations. The Khaling Handloom Development Project, established in 1983, trains women weavers and provides market access for finished products, formalizing traditional crafts into sustainable income. By 2026, Trashigang's distance from Thimphu—the remote east has poverty rates exceeding 25%—drives calls for decentralized development that would restore some of the self-sufficiency the district enjoyed before roads integrated it into a Thimphu-centric economy.