Sikkim

Sikkim is a small Himalayan state between Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan, with its capital at Gangtok. It is the least populous state in India, with an area of about 7,100 sq km. The terrain rises steeply from the Teesta valley to Kanchenjunga, at 8,586 m the highest mountain in India and the third highest in the world.

Sikkim was a Buddhist kingdom under a Chogyal until 1975, when it became the 22nd Indian state after a referendum. The population is a mix of Lepcha, Bhutia and Nepali communities, and Nepali is the majority language. The economy rests on hydropower, tourism, and horticulture — large cardamom, ginger, oranges and orchids. In 2016 the state was declared fully organic in its farming, the first in India to reach that status.

Because the state’s rivers are steep and fast, hydropower has been its main source of revenue, and a series of dams on the Teesta and its tributaries were built on that basis. The same valleys are prone to glacial lake outburst floods: a sudden flood on the Teesta in October 2023, after a glacial lake gave way in the north, destroyed a large hydropower project and killed dozens of people, and has forced a reexamination of how much dam building the terrain can carry.