Gangtok

Gangtok lies on a ridge in the eastern Himalaya, overlooking the valleys of Sikkim and the high mountains beyond. The early settlement belonged to a landscape in which Tibetan Buddhist traditions took root alongside the older cultures of the region. A small monastic hermitage is recorded here in 1716. It stood within the kingdom founded by the Chogyals of Sikkim, whose first ruler was consecrated at Yuksom in the seventeenth century.