50 Fun Facts About Arunachal Pradesh

Sangetsar Tso, a lake in Arunachal Pradesh, is nicknamed after which Bollywood actress who danced there in Koyla?

Madhuri Dixit filmed a dance sequence for Koyla beside the lake, which was itself created when an earthquake dammed a river with fallen rocks, boulders and trees.

Which city, named after a medieval fort built of bricks, is the capital of Arunachal Pradesh?

Itanagar takes its name from Ita Fort, the 'fort of bricks' raised in the 14th or 15th century; 'ita' is the Assamese word for brick.

Which tiny village in Arunachal Pradesh's Anjaw district is famed for catching India's first rays of sunrise?

Dong was found in 1999 to see the country's earliest sunrise, and visitors now climb to a lookout above the village at about 3 am to watch it.

Anshu Jamsenpa of Arunachal Pradesh made history in 2017 by climbing which mountain twice within five days?

Everest fell to her on 16 May and again on 21 May 2017, the fastest double ascent by a woman; she comes from Bomdila and later received the Padma Shri.

Which language is the only official language of Arunachal Pradesh, a state with dozens of tribal tongues?

English is the sole official language, though a locally flavoured Hindi, spread by migrant schoolteachers, serves as the everyday lingua franca between the tribes.

Which town in western Arunachal Pradesh is home to the largest Buddhist monastery in India, founded in 1680–81?

Tawang, whose name means 'the location selected by horse', grew around a three-storey monastery ringed by a 925-foot compound wall.

What does the Sanskrit name Arunachal Pradesh, coined when the territory was renamed in 1972, literally mean?

Land of dawn-lit mountains suits a state on India's far eastern edge: old Indian texts called its ranges the Aruna Mountains, the place where the sun rises.

Which semi-domesticated bovine, kept by hill tribes as a sign of wealth, is the state animal of Arunachal Pradesh?

Mithun, also called the gayal, is so prized that among the Adi a marriage is not fixed until the groom's family gives at least one to the bride's household.

Which country claims most of Arunachal Pradesh as its own and briefly occupied parts of it in 1962?

China pulled its troops back after the 1962 war, but it has since issued lists that rename mountains, rivers and villages in the state.

Which religion had the most followers in Arunachal Pradesh at the 2011 census, at about 30 per cent?

Christianity was the faith of under 1 per cent of the state in 1971, yet by 2011 it had edged past Hinduism to become the largest religion.

Which boundary, named after a British administrator of 1914, marks Arunachal Pradesh's disputed northern border?

McMahon Line maps were slow to appear: an official found in 1935 that the boundary was missing from official maps, and the Survey of India first showed it in 1937.

By what name was Arunachal Pradesh known from 1954 until 1972, when it became a union territory?

North-East Frontier Agency, or NEFA, was run by the central government through the Governor of Assam; before 1954 the same hills were the North-East Frontier Tracts.

Which large bird, hunted for the casque and tail feathers worn as tribal adornments, is Arunachal Pradesh's state bird?

Great hornbill females seal themselves inside a tree hollow to nest and are fed by their mate through a slit until the chicks are half grown.

By what name is the Brahmaputra known where it enters Arunachal Pradesh from Tibet, before reaching the plains?

Siang is the name the Yarlung Tsangpo takes as it drops into India; lower down it becomes the Dihang, and only in the Assam valley is it called the Brahmaputra.

Which Arunachal Pradesh town, set among pine-clad hills and rice fields, hosts a music festival founded in 2012?

Ziro is on UNESCO's tentative World Heritage list for its cultural landscape, and its four-day festival favours emerging acts from Northeast India.

Which distinction does Arunachal Pradesh, with about 1.4 million people at the 2011 census, hold among Indian states?

Lowest population density of any Indian state: just 17 people per square kilometre, in a land where forest covers roughly three-quarters of the ground.

Which travel document must Indian citizens from other states obtain to pass Arunachal Pradesh's border checkgates?

Inner Line Permit rules grew out of a British-era system designed to keep outsiders from provoking the frontier tribes, and visitors' papers are still checked on the way in.

Which snowbound crossing in Arunachal Pradesh, above 4,000 metres, was bypassed by an all-weather road tunnel in 2024?

Sela Pass stands at about 4,170 m beside a lake held sacred in Tibetan Buddhism; the tunnel runs 400 m beneath it and keeps the highway open through winter.

Which people, called Dafla in old Ahom and British records, are the most populous tribe of Arunachal Pradesh?

Nyishi means 'human being' in the tribe's own Tani language, and its roughly 300,000 members trace their descent through the male line in several clans.

Tsangyang Gyatso, born in 1683 in what is now western Arunachal Pradesh, held which high office in Tibetan Buddhism?

Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso, sixth of the line, grew his hair long and wrote poems and songs that are still popular; Mongol forces kidnapped and deposed him.

Which national park in Arunachal Pradesh shelters four big cats: tiger, leopard, snow leopard and clouded leopard?

Namdapha climbs from about 200 m to over 4,500 m, which is why lowland rainforest cats and the high-altitude snow leopard can share a single park.

Under which prime minister's government did Arunachal Pradesh gain full statehood in February 1987?

Rajiv Gandhi's government granted statehood fifteen years after his mother Indira Gandhi's had turned the region into a union territory.

Arunachal Pradesh belongs to which nicknamed group of contiguous northeastern Indian states, a label coined in 1972?

Seven Sisters was coined by journalist Jyoti Prasad Saikia during a radio talk as the new states were inaugurated, and a book he later compiled made the nickname stick.

What kind of farming is known as jhum among the hill tribes of Arunachal Pradesh?

Shifting cultivation means farming a cleared hill plot for a short time and then leaving it fallow for years to regrow; the practice is fading as other incomes grow.

Which Tibetan New Year festival do the Monpa people of western Arunachal Pradesh mark with prayers at their monasteries?

Losar falls on the first day of the lunisolar Tibetan calendar, in February or March; the Monpa also keep a harvest festival called Choskar.

Donyi-Polo, the indigenous faith of Arunachal Pradesh's Tani peoples, takes its name from which pair?

Sun and Moon are addressed by believers as a mother and a father, and followers describe themselves as the children of the two.

Which peak on the border with Tibet, rising above 7,000 metres, is the highest point in Arunachal Pradesh?

Kangto is so remote that every attempt to reach the foot of the peak failed until a joint expedition set up a base camp near it in 2016.

Which people of Arunachal Pradesh grow wet rice without farm animals or machines, a system praised by UNESCO?

Apatani farmers also run traditional village councils called bulyañ and pray for a bumper harvest at the Dree festival each July.

Which small ape of Arunachal Pradesh's forests had a new subspecies described and named after the Mishmi Hills?

Hoolock gibbon males are black with striking white brows while females are grey-brown; hoolocks are the second-largest gibbons, after the siamang.

Which city outside Arunachal Pradesh served as its administrative headquarters until the capital shifted in 1974?

Shillong, now Meghalaya's capital, ran the remote hills from a distance because the territory had long been governed through the Governor of Assam.

Which World War II supply route climbed from Assam through Arunachal Pradesh's Pangsau Pass into Burma?

Ledo Road, also named after US General Joseph Stilwell, was built to replace the land route lost to Japan and to back up the airlift flown over the mountains.

Which branch of Buddhism is practised near Arunachal Pradesh's Myanmar border, far from the Tibetan Buddhist west?

Theravada arrived with Tai peoples who migrated from Burma, and a Burmese-style Golden Pagoda opened at Namsai in 2010.

Which flower, bearing hanging sprays of over 100 pink-spotted white blooms, is the state flower of Arunachal Pradesh?

Foxtail orchid sprays, known as kopou phool in neighbouring Assam, are worn by Bihu dancers as part of their attire.

Which hill range on Arunachal Pradesh's border with Myanmar is crossed by the Pangsau Pass?

Patkai peaks are lower and less rugged than the Himalayas, yet Allied airmen in World War II counted the range as part of The Hump.

Which Hindu pilgrimage site on Arunachal Pradesh's Lohit River draws thousands for a holy dip each Makar Sankranti?

Parshuram Kund is where, in legend, a sage who had killed his mother washed his hands and the axe that had stuck to them finally fell away.

Which Tai-speaking Buddhist tribe of eastern Arunachal Pradesh gave its name to a rice awarded a GI tag in 2023?

Khamti rice, sold as Khaw Tai, was the first rice variety from the state to earn the protected label; the tribe's language is close kin to Shan in Myanmar.

Which rare bird winters in small numbers in the Sangti and Zemithang valleys of western Arunachal Pradesh?

Black-necked crane flocks breed on the Tibetan Plateau and are revered in Buddhist traditions, which keeps them protected across much of their range.

Which town beside Arunachal Pradesh's capital was linked to India's rail network when its station opened in 2014?

Naharlagun was reached by a short branch from Harmuti in Assam, and in 2015 a through train from New Delhi was flagged off to the new station.

Which town, founded by the British in 1911 as a gateway to the Abor Hills, is Arunachal Pradesh's oldest?

Pasighat takes its name from the Pasi, an Adi sub-tribe among its earliest settlers; before British contact the site was known as Paklek.

Which country lies directly west of Arunachal Pradesh, bordering the state's Monpa-inhabited districts?

Bhutan lies to the west, Myanmar to the east and Tibet to the north, giving the state international borders on three sides.

The Tani languages, Arunachal Pradesh's most widely spoken group, belong to which larger language family?

Tibeto-Burman Tani tongues are so alike that most can be understood by speakers of a neighbouring one, forming a chain of dialects across the central hills.

In which Himalayan hill station was the 1914 convention signed that drew Arunachal Pradesh's northern frontier?

Simla hosted the signing in 1914, yet Britain did not publish the accord as a bilateral agreement until 1938, two decades later.

The Nocte and Wancho tribes of southeastern Arunachal Pradesh belong to which larger family of peoples?

Naga groups such as the Nocte are thought to have migrated from Myanmar's Hukong Valley in the 15th and 16th centuries, and are kin to the Konyak.

Which rail-and-road crossing of the Brahmaputra, opened in 2018, eased access to central Arunachal Pradesh from Assam?

Bogibeel Bridge carries trains on its lower deck and a road on top for 4.94 km, and was built to withstand earthquakes.

Which rifleman won a posthumous Maha Vir Chakra for holding a post in present-day Arunachal Pradesh during the 1962 war?

Jaswant Singh Rawat of the Garhwal Rifles is said to have fought on with the help of two local Monpa girls after his company fell back, and a war memorial now stands at his post.

Which April festival of Arunachal Pradesh's Galo tribe sees revellers smear rice flour on one another's faces?

Mopin marks the Galo new year and harvest: dancers in white perform the Popir, and rice beer is handed round in bamboo cups.

Which school of Tibetan Buddhism runs India's largest monastery, a 17th-century foundation in western Arunachal Pradesh?

Gelug, also known as the Yellow Hat school, tied the monastery to Drepung near Lhasa, and its library still holds valuable old Kangyur and Tengyur scriptures.

In which Arunachal Pradesh wildlife sanctuary was the Bugun liocichla, a bird new to science, described in 2006?

Eaglenest takes its name from the Red Eagle Division of the Indian Army, which was posted in the area in the 1950s.

Which town on the Lohit River in Arunachal Pradesh is the easternmost town in mainland India?

Walong was also the scene of a 1962 battle in which outnumbered Indian troops held up the advance for nearly a month.

Which mid-April New Year festival of eastern Arunachal Pradesh's Tai communities centres on splashing clean water?

Sangken lasts three days, during which images of the Buddha are brought out in procession and given a ceremonial bath.