Arunachal Pradesh

Arunachal Pradesh is India’s largest north-eastern state by area, running along the eastern Himalaya from Bhutan in the west to Myanmar in the east, with Tibet to the north. The capital is Itanagar. The terrain rises from the Brahmaputra plain through deep river gorges — the Siang, Dibang and Lohit — to high Himalayan ridges.

The state is overwhelmingly rural and heavily forested. Around two dozen major tribes and many smaller groups live across the valleys, each with its own language; most belong to the Tani, Mishmi, Naga and Monpa groupings. Livelihoods rest on shifting cultivation, horticulture, and government service. Hydroelectric potential is large and largely unbuilt.

China claims the whole of Arunachal Pradesh as part of what it calls South Tibet, and the Line of Actual Control runs along the state’s northern edge. The 2020 clash in the Galwan valley took place in Ladakh, not here, but the unresolved boundary is the same dispute. Tawang, in the north-west, holds a large Tibetan Buddhist monastery and has been the site of repeated border incidents.