Darjeeling is a mountain town in the state of __ in __. The world's third __est __ is located near it.
Darjeeling is a mountain town in the state of West Bengal in India. The world's third highest mountain is located near it - Kangchenjunga.
Darjeeling is famous for three things at least:
- cosmopolitan culture
- nice tea
- Darjeeling Himalayan Railway
Its cosmopolitan culture means that, historically, different ethnic groups intermixed and created an environment to eventually live together in accord, as well as become open to different foreign cultures. The main foreign influencer here were the British: for the better, they started the backup tea industry that is now famous for its high quality tea. The reason I say "backup" is because at the time, the British were seeking an alternative supply of tea apart from China and attempted growing the plant in several candidate areas in India. For worse, they displaced a lot of indigenous peoples, made Nepali people work at their plantations and brought a lot of disorder.
More facts:
- Darjeeling tea's production is falling quite rapidly. In its prime, Darjeeling tea production touched 11 million kg in a year. In 2022, its production was at 7 million kg. It's more expensive than common black tea, but is pretty common itself, thus in rough economic times it wouldn't be the first choice.
- The Darjeeling area is located in Eastern Himalayas and has an average elevation of ~2000 metres.
- Kangchenjunga is a mouthful, since it's a Tibetan name. The "en" in the middle is pronounced like in "when"; the "j" after is pronounced like in the word "just". In that part of the world "j" is usually pronounced like that.
- Darjeeling Himalayan Railway features cool blue retro trains. Combine that with the lush mountain views, and it's definitely a memorable trip.
- Darjeeling's population today is constituted largely of the descendants of aforementioned workers from Nepal. Although the Nepali language has been given official recognition in India, the recognition has created little meaningful employment for the language's speakers nor has it increased their ability to have a significantly greater say in their political affairs. But that's a problem in Nepal as well: it's a country greatly dependent on India.
