Kalimpong Cheese Floriculture Tibetan Thangka Trade

Kalimpong district (separated from Darjeeling in 2017) at 1,250 metres on the Teesta river's east bank was British India's major entrepôt for Tibet trade — wool, musk, salt, and handicraft from Tibet were exchanged for Indian cotton, rice, and manufactured goods at Kalimpong's Tenga bazaar. The district today is famous for floriculture (gladiolus, orchid, anthurium, and roses grown for Kolkata and export markets), cheesemaking (Kalimpong cheese — a semi-hard cow milk cheese produced by Swiss missionaries in the 1950s that became a local specialty), and Tibetan Buddhist thangka painting at monasteries. Kalimpong's Lepcha community maintains traditional ecological knowledge of the eastern Himalayan biodiversity, with the district's Neora Valley National Park protecting red panda, clouded leopard, and Himalayan black bear.