Darjeeling district
Darjeeling District is the northernmost district of the state of West Bengal in eastern India in the foothills of the Himalayas. The district is famous for its hill station and Darjeeling tea. Darjeeling is the district headquarters.
Darjeeling district | |
|---|---|
District | |
Clockwise from top-left: Tea estate in Darjeeling, Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, Ghum Monastery, View of Kangchenjunga from Tiger Hill, View of Siliguri | |
Location of Darjeeling in West Bengal | |
| Country | India |
| State | West Bengal |
| Division | Jalpaiguri |
| Headquarters | Darjeeling |
| Government | |
| • Lok Sabha constituencies | Darjeeling (shared with Kalimpong district) |
| • Vidhan Sabha constituencies | Darjeeling, Kurseong, Matigara-Naxalbari, Siliguri, Phansidewa |
| Area | |
| • Total | 2,092.5 km2 (807.9 sq mi) |
| Population (2011) | |
| • Total | 1,595,181 |
| • Density | 760/km2 (2,000/sq mi) |
| • Urban | 727,963 |
| Demographics | |
| • Literacy | 79.56% (excluding 0–6 population) |
| • Sex ratio | 970 |
| Time zone | UTC+05:30 (IST) |
| Major highways | NH 31, NH 55 |
| HDI (2004) | 0.650 (medium) |
| Website | darjeeling |
Kurseong, Siliguri and Mirik, three major towns in the district, are the subdivisional headquarters of the district. Kalimpong was one of the subdivisions but on 14 February 2017, it officially became a separate Kalimpong district.
Geographically, the district can be divided into two broad divisions: the hills and the plains. The entire hilly region of the district comes under the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, a semi-autonomous administrative body under the state government of West Bengal. This body covers the three hill subdivisions of Darjeeling, Kurseong and Mirik and the district of Kalimpong. The foothills of Darjeeling Himalayas, which comes under the Siliguri subdivision, is known as the Terai. The district is bounded on the north by Sikkim, on the south by Uttar Dinajpur district of West Bengal, southwest by Kishanganj district of Bihar state, on the southeast by Panchagarh district of Bangladesh, on the east by Kalimpong and Jalpaiguri districts, and on the west by easternmost Province No. 1 of Nepal. Darjeeling district has a length from north to south of 18 miles (29 km) and a breadth from east to west of 16 miles (26 km). As of 2011, it was the second least populous district of West Bengal (out of 19), after Dakshin Dinajpur.