Darjeeling
India /
Bangla /
Darjiling /
World
/ India
/ Bangla
/ Darjiling
World / India / West Bengal / Darjiling
city, hill station, taluka headquarter, district headquarter
Tehsil Darjeeling Sadar, District Darjeeling, Bengal, Bharat.
Population : 132,016 (2011)
Darjeeling district is the northernmost district of West Bengal state in eastern India. The district is famous for its beautiful hill station, Darjeeling, often referred as the queen of the Himalayas and Darjeeling tea and its aroma. Kalimpong, Kurseong and Siliguri, three other major towns in the district, are the sub divisional headquarters of the district. Mirik, another town of the district, has been developed as a lake resort in late 1970s.
Geographically the district can be divided into two broad divisions, the hills and the plains. The entire hilly region of the district comes under Darjeeling Gorkha Autonomous Hill Council, an autonomous administrative body under the state Government of West Bengal. The council covers the three hill subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong. The foot-hills of Darjeeling Himalayas, which coming under the Siliguri subdivision, is known as Terai. The Terai is the tract lying at the foot of the hills, which is bounded on the north by the mountains, on the south by the Purnia district of Bihar state, on the east by Jalpaiguri district and on the west by Nepal, the Himalayan kingdom. It has a length from north to south of 18 miles (29 km), and a breadth from east to west of 16 miles (26 km).Darjeeling a town in the Indian state of West Bengal, is internationally famous for its tea industry and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the headquarters of Darjeeling district, located in the Mahabharat Range or Lesser Himalaya at an average elevation of 6,710 ft (2,050 m).
Development of the town dates back to the mid-19th century, when the British set up a sanatorium and a military depot. Subsequently, extensive tea plantations were established in the region, and tea growers developed distinctive hybrids of black tea and created new fermenting techniques. The resultant distinctive Darjeeling tea is internationally recognised and ranks among the most popular of the black teas.[2] The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway connects the town with the plains and has one of the few steam locomotives still in service in India. Darjeeling also has several British-style public schools, which attract students from throughout India and neighbouring countries. The town, with its neighbour Kalimpong, was a center for the demand of the Gorkhaland separatist movement in the 1980s. In recent years the town's fragile ecology has been threatened by a rising demand for environmental resources, stemming from growing tourist traffic and poorly-planned urbanisation.The history of Darjeeling is intertwined with that of Bengal, Bhutan, Sikkim and Nepal. Until the early 19th century, the hilly area around Darjeeling was historically controlled by the kingdoms of Bhutan and Sikkim, while the plains around Siliguri were intermittently occupied by the kingdom of Nepal, with settlement consisting of a few households of Lepcha people. In 1828, a delegation of British East India Company officials on its way to Sikkim stayed in Darjeeling and decided that the region was a suitable site for a sanatorium for British soldiers. The Company negotiated a lease of the area west of the Mahananda River from the Chogyal of Sikkim in 1835.In 1849 British East India Company (BEIC) director Arthur Campbell and the explorer and botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker were imprisoned in the region; the East India Company sent a force to free them. Continued friction between the BEIC and the Sikkim authorities resulted in the annexation of 640 square miles (1,700 km2) of territory in 1850. In 1864, the Bhutanese rulers and the British signed a treaty that ceded the passes leading through the hills and Kalimpong to the British. The continuing discord between Sikkim and the British resulted in a war, culminating in the signing of a treaty and the annexation by the British of the area east of the Teesta River in 1865. By 1866, Darjeeling District had assumed its current shape and size, covering an area of 1,234 square miles (3,200 km2).
During the British Raj, Darjeeling's temperate climate led to its development as a hill station for British residents seeking to escape the summer heat of the plains, and its becoming the informal summer capital of the Bengal Presidency in 1840, a practice that was formalised after 1864.
A hillside with houses having tiled roofs.
Darjeeling view, 1880
The development of Darjeeling as a sanatorium and health resort proceeded briskly. Arthur Campbell, a surgeon with the Company, and Lieutenant Robert Napier were responsible for establishing a hill station there. Campbell's efforts to develop the station, attract immigrants to cultivate the slopes and stimulate trade resulted in a hundredfold increase in the population of Darjeeling between 1835 and 1849. The first road connecting the town with the plains was constructed between 1839 and 1842.[In 1848, a military depot was set up for British soldiers, and the town became a municipality in 1850.Commercial cultivation of tea in the district began in 1856, and induced a number of British planters to settle there. Scottish missionaries undertook the construction of schools and welfare centres for the British residents, laying the foundation for Darjeeling's notability as a centre of education. The opening of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway in 1881 further hastened the development of the region.In 1899, Darjeeling was rocked by major landslides that caused severe damage to the town and the native population.
An obelisk on an elevated circular platform, with a few people standing around. Mountain peaks are visible in the background.
Darjeeling War Memorial
Under British rule, the Darjeeling area was initially a Non-Regulation District, a scheme of administration applicable to economically less advanced districts in the British Raj, and acts and regulations of the British Raj did not automatically apply to the district in line with rest of the country. In 1919, the area was declared a "backward tract".During the Indian independence movement, the Non-cooperation Movement spread through the tea estates of Darjeeling.There was also a failed assassination attempt by revolutionaries on Sir John Anderson, the Governor of Bengal in 1934.Subsequently, during the 1940s, Communist activists continued the nationalist movement against the British by mobilising the plantation workers and the peasants of the district.
A woman selling vegetables at a market in Darjeeling
Socio-economic problems of the region that had not been addressed during British rule continued to linger and were reflected in a representation made to the Constituent Assembly of India in 1947, which highlighted the issues of regional autonomy and Nepali nationality in Darjeeling and adjacent areas.[18] After the independence of India in 1947, Darjeeling was merged with the state of West Bengal. A separate district of Darjeeling was established consisting of the hill towns of Darjeeling, Kurseong, Kalimpong and some parts of the Terai region. While the hill population included mainly of ethnic Nepalis who had migrated there during British rule, the plains harboured a large ethnic Bengali population who were refugees from the Partition of India.[19] A cautious and non-receptive response by the West Bengal government to most demands of the ethnic Nepali population led to increased calls, in the 1950s and 1960s, for Darjeeling's autonomy and for the recognition of the Nepali language; the state government acceded to the latter demand in 1961.
The creation of a new state of Sikkim in 1975, along with the reluctance of the Government of India to recognise Nepali as an official language under the Constitution of India, brought the issue of a separate state of Gorkhaland to the forefront. Agitation for a separate state continued through the 1980s,included violent protests during the 1986–88 period. The agitation ceased only after an agreement between the government and the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), resulting in the establishment of an elected body in 1988 called the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC), which received autonomy to govern the district. Though Darjeeling is now peaceful, the issue of a separate state still lingers, fueled in part by the lack of comprehensive economic development in the region even after the formation of the DGHC. New protests erupted in 2008–09, but both the Union and State governments rejected Gorkha Janmukti Morcha's demand for a separate state.Darjeeling is the main town of the Sadar subdivision and also the headquarters of the district. It is located at an average elevation of 6,710 ft (2,050 m)[1] in the Darjeeling Himalayan hill region on the Darjeeling-Jalapahar range that originates in the south from Ghum. The range is Y-shaped with the base resting at Katapahar and Jalapahar and two arms diverging north of the Observatory Hill. The north-eastern arm dips suddenly and ends in the Lebong spur, while the north-western arm passes through North Point and ends in the valley near Tukver Tea Estate.[25] The hills are nestled within higher peaks and the snow-clad Himalayan ranges tower over the town in the distance. Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest peak, 8,598 m (28,209 ft) high, is the most prominent mountain visible. In days clear of clouds, Nepal's Mount Everest, 29,035 ft (8,850 m) high, can be seen as a tiny spot.
The hills of Darjeeling are part of the Mahabharat Range or Lesser Himalaya. The soil is chiefly composed of sandstone and conglomerate formations, which are the solidified and upheaved detritus of the great range of Himalaya. However, the soil is often poorly consolidated (the permeable sediments of the region do not retain water between rains) and is not considered suitable for agriculture. The area has steep slopes and loose topsoil, leading to frequent landslides during the monsoons. According to the Bureau of Indian Standards, the town falls under seismic zone-IV, (on a scale of I to V, in order of increasing proneness to earthquakes) near the convergent boundary of the Indian and the Eurasian tectonic plates and is subject to frequent earthquakes.The name Darjeeling came from the Tibetan words, dorje (thunderbolt) and ling (place or land), means the land of the thunderbolt. In 1835 Darjeeling was annexed by the East India Company. Prior to that, Darjeeling formed a part of Sikkim and for a brief period of Nepal.
Previously Darjeeling formed a part of dominions of the Raja of Sikkim, who had been engaged in an unsuccessful warfare against the Gorkhas. From 1780 the Gorkhas made several attempts to capture the entire region of Darjeeling. By the beginning of 19th Century, they had overrun Sikkim as far eastward as the Teesta River and had conquered and annexed the Terai.
In the meantime, the British were engaged in preventing the Gorkhas from overrunning the whole of the northern frontier. The Anglo-Nepal war broke out in 1814, which resulted in the defeat of the Gorkhas and subsequently to the Sugauli Treaty in 1815. According to the treaty, Nepal had to cede all those territories which the Gorkhas had annexed from the Raja of Sikkim to the British East India Company.
Later in 1817, through the Treaty of Titalia, the British East India Company reinstated the Raja of Sikkim (who was driven out), restored all the tracts of land between the Mechi River on the west and Teesta River to the Raja of Sikkim and guaranteed his sovereignty.
The controversy did not end there. Later, in 1835, the hill of Darjeeling including an enclave of 138 square miles (360 km2) was gifted to the East India company. In November 1864, the treaty of Sinchula was executed in which the Bhutan Dooars with the passes leading into the hills and Kalimpong were ceded to the British. The Darjeeling district can be said to have assumed its present shape and size in 1866 is 1234 sq. miles.
Population : 132,016 (2011)
Darjeeling district is the northernmost district of West Bengal state in eastern India. The district is famous for its beautiful hill station, Darjeeling, often referred as the queen of the Himalayas and Darjeeling tea and its aroma. Kalimpong, Kurseong and Siliguri, three other major towns in the district, are the sub divisional headquarters of the district. Mirik, another town of the district, has been developed as a lake resort in late 1970s.
Geographically the district can be divided into two broad divisions, the hills and the plains. The entire hilly region of the district comes under Darjeeling Gorkha Autonomous Hill Council, an autonomous administrative body under the state Government of West Bengal. The council covers the three hill subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong. The foot-hills of Darjeeling Himalayas, which coming under the Siliguri subdivision, is known as Terai. The Terai is the tract lying at the foot of the hills, which is bounded on the north by the mountains, on the south by the Purnia district of Bihar state, on the east by Jalpaiguri district and on the west by Nepal, the Himalayan kingdom. It has a length from north to south of 18 miles (29 km), and a breadth from east to west of 16 miles (26 km).Darjeeling a town in the Indian state of West Bengal, is internationally famous for its tea industry and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the headquarters of Darjeeling district, located in the Mahabharat Range or Lesser Himalaya at an average elevation of 6,710 ft (2,050 m).
Development of the town dates back to the mid-19th century, when the British set up a sanatorium and a military depot. Subsequently, extensive tea plantations were established in the region, and tea growers developed distinctive hybrids of black tea and created new fermenting techniques. The resultant distinctive Darjeeling tea is internationally recognised and ranks among the most popular of the black teas.[2] The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway connects the town with the plains and has one of the few steam locomotives still in service in India. Darjeeling also has several British-style public schools, which attract students from throughout India and neighbouring countries. The town, with its neighbour Kalimpong, was a center for the demand of the Gorkhaland separatist movement in the 1980s. In recent years the town's fragile ecology has been threatened by a rising demand for environmental resources, stemming from growing tourist traffic and poorly-planned urbanisation.The history of Darjeeling is intertwined with that of Bengal, Bhutan, Sikkim and Nepal. Until the early 19th century, the hilly area around Darjeeling was historically controlled by the kingdoms of Bhutan and Sikkim, while the plains around Siliguri were intermittently occupied by the kingdom of Nepal, with settlement consisting of a few households of Lepcha people. In 1828, a delegation of British East India Company officials on its way to Sikkim stayed in Darjeeling and decided that the region was a suitable site for a sanatorium for British soldiers. The Company negotiated a lease of the area west of the Mahananda River from the Chogyal of Sikkim in 1835.In 1849 British East India Company (BEIC) director Arthur Campbell and the explorer and botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker were imprisoned in the region; the East India Company sent a force to free them. Continued friction between the BEIC and the Sikkim authorities resulted in the annexation of 640 square miles (1,700 km2) of territory in 1850. In 1864, the Bhutanese rulers and the British signed a treaty that ceded the passes leading through the hills and Kalimpong to the British. The continuing discord between Sikkim and the British resulted in a war, culminating in the signing of a treaty and the annexation by the British of the area east of the Teesta River in 1865. By 1866, Darjeeling District had assumed its current shape and size, covering an area of 1,234 square miles (3,200 km2).
During the British Raj, Darjeeling's temperate climate led to its development as a hill station for British residents seeking to escape the summer heat of the plains, and its becoming the informal summer capital of the Bengal Presidency in 1840, a practice that was formalised after 1864.
A hillside with houses having tiled roofs.
Darjeeling view, 1880
The development of Darjeeling as a sanatorium and health resort proceeded briskly. Arthur Campbell, a surgeon with the Company, and Lieutenant Robert Napier were responsible for establishing a hill station there. Campbell's efforts to develop the station, attract immigrants to cultivate the slopes and stimulate trade resulted in a hundredfold increase in the population of Darjeeling between 1835 and 1849. The first road connecting the town with the plains was constructed between 1839 and 1842.[In 1848, a military depot was set up for British soldiers, and the town became a municipality in 1850.Commercial cultivation of tea in the district began in 1856, and induced a number of British planters to settle there. Scottish missionaries undertook the construction of schools and welfare centres for the British residents, laying the foundation for Darjeeling's notability as a centre of education. The opening of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway in 1881 further hastened the development of the region.In 1899, Darjeeling was rocked by major landslides that caused severe damage to the town and the native population.
An obelisk on an elevated circular platform, with a few people standing around. Mountain peaks are visible in the background.
Darjeeling War Memorial
Under British rule, the Darjeeling area was initially a Non-Regulation District, a scheme of administration applicable to economically less advanced districts in the British Raj, and acts and regulations of the British Raj did not automatically apply to the district in line with rest of the country. In 1919, the area was declared a "backward tract".During the Indian independence movement, the Non-cooperation Movement spread through the tea estates of Darjeeling.There was also a failed assassination attempt by revolutionaries on Sir John Anderson, the Governor of Bengal in 1934.Subsequently, during the 1940s, Communist activists continued the nationalist movement against the British by mobilising the plantation workers and the peasants of the district.
A woman selling vegetables at a market in Darjeeling
Socio-economic problems of the region that had not been addressed during British rule continued to linger and were reflected in a representation made to the Constituent Assembly of India in 1947, which highlighted the issues of regional autonomy and Nepali nationality in Darjeeling and adjacent areas.[18] After the independence of India in 1947, Darjeeling was merged with the state of West Bengal. A separate district of Darjeeling was established consisting of the hill towns of Darjeeling, Kurseong, Kalimpong and some parts of the Terai region. While the hill population included mainly of ethnic Nepalis who had migrated there during British rule, the plains harboured a large ethnic Bengali population who were refugees from the Partition of India.[19] A cautious and non-receptive response by the West Bengal government to most demands of the ethnic Nepali population led to increased calls, in the 1950s and 1960s, for Darjeeling's autonomy and for the recognition of the Nepali language; the state government acceded to the latter demand in 1961.
The creation of a new state of Sikkim in 1975, along with the reluctance of the Government of India to recognise Nepali as an official language under the Constitution of India, brought the issue of a separate state of Gorkhaland to the forefront. Agitation for a separate state continued through the 1980s,included violent protests during the 1986–88 period. The agitation ceased only after an agreement between the government and the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), resulting in the establishment of an elected body in 1988 called the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC), which received autonomy to govern the district. Though Darjeeling is now peaceful, the issue of a separate state still lingers, fueled in part by the lack of comprehensive economic development in the region even after the formation of the DGHC. New protests erupted in 2008–09, but both the Union and State governments rejected Gorkha Janmukti Morcha's demand for a separate state.Darjeeling is the main town of the Sadar subdivision and also the headquarters of the district. It is located at an average elevation of 6,710 ft (2,050 m)[1] in the Darjeeling Himalayan hill region on the Darjeeling-Jalapahar range that originates in the south from Ghum. The range is Y-shaped with the base resting at Katapahar and Jalapahar and two arms diverging north of the Observatory Hill. The north-eastern arm dips suddenly and ends in the Lebong spur, while the north-western arm passes through North Point and ends in the valley near Tukver Tea Estate.[25] The hills are nestled within higher peaks and the snow-clad Himalayan ranges tower over the town in the distance. Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest peak, 8,598 m (28,209 ft) high, is the most prominent mountain visible. In days clear of clouds, Nepal's Mount Everest, 29,035 ft (8,850 m) high, can be seen as a tiny spot.
The hills of Darjeeling are part of the Mahabharat Range or Lesser Himalaya. The soil is chiefly composed of sandstone and conglomerate formations, which are the solidified and upheaved detritus of the great range of Himalaya. However, the soil is often poorly consolidated (the permeable sediments of the region do not retain water between rains) and is not considered suitable for agriculture. The area has steep slopes and loose topsoil, leading to frequent landslides during the monsoons. According to the Bureau of Indian Standards, the town falls under seismic zone-IV, (on a scale of I to V, in order of increasing proneness to earthquakes) near the convergent boundary of the Indian and the Eurasian tectonic plates and is subject to frequent earthquakes.The name Darjeeling came from the Tibetan words, dorje (thunderbolt) and ling (place or land), means the land of the thunderbolt. In 1835 Darjeeling was annexed by the East India Company. Prior to that, Darjeeling formed a part of Sikkim and for a brief period of Nepal.
Previously Darjeeling formed a part of dominions of the Raja of Sikkim, who had been engaged in an unsuccessful warfare against the Gorkhas. From 1780 the Gorkhas made several attempts to capture the entire region of Darjeeling. By the beginning of 19th Century, they had overrun Sikkim as far eastward as the Teesta River and had conquered and annexed the Terai.
In the meantime, the British were engaged in preventing the Gorkhas from overrunning the whole of the northern frontier. The Anglo-Nepal war broke out in 1814, which resulted in the defeat of the Gorkhas and subsequently to the Sugauli Treaty in 1815. According to the treaty, Nepal had to cede all those territories which the Gorkhas had annexed from the Raja of Sikkim to the British East India Company.
Later in 1817, through the Treaty of Titalia, the British East India Company reinstated the Raja of Sikkim (who was driven out), restored all the tracts of land between the Mechi River on the west and Teesta River to the Raja of Sikkim and guaranteed his sovereignty.
The controversy did not end there. Later, in 1835, the hill of Darjeeling including an enclave of 138 square miles (360 km2) was gifted to the East India company. In November 1864, the treaty of Sinchula was executed in which the Bhutan Dooars with the passes leading into the hills and Kalimpong were ceded to the British. The Darjeeling district can be said to have assumed its present shape and size in 1866 is 1234 sq. miles.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darjeeling
Nearby cities:
Coordinates: 27°2'47"N 88°15'55"E
- Kalimpong Town (कालेबुङ) 18 km
- Kohima 595 km
- Ranikhet 918 km
- Shimla 1175 km
- Dharamshala 1293 km
- Kargil 1432 km
- Abbottabad 1650 km
- Yercaud 1988 km
- Kajīr Marko Hill Station 2085 km
- Kodaikanal 2186 km
- Loreto Convent 0.2 km
- Lloyd Botanic Garden 0.4 km
- Raj Bhavan, Darjeeling (W.B.) 0.5 km
- Lebong Public Ground 1.4 km
- Pandam Tea Estate 1.9 km
- KOTHI GAON 1.9 km
- Army 2.4 km
- Bannock Burn T.E 2.6 km
- Phoobshering Tea Estate 3.3 km
- Ging Tea Estate 3.5 km
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