The world's third highest mountain, Kangchenjunga, towers to the north of Darjeeling.
Darjeeling is a town in the Eastern Himalayas in India. On the slopes below Darjeeling tea is grown. Up those same slopes, trains ascend some 7,000 feet on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a World Heritage Site and a popular tourist experience. In the early 19th century much of India was ruled by the East India Company and Darjeeling was founded as a summer retreat; due to its elevation it was significantly cooler that the plains' cities. Thousands of labourers were recruited from the surrounding kingdoms to build the town and the railway, and to work in the tea plantations. The descendants of these labourers constitute the majority of Darjeeling's residents today and give the town a cosmopolitan ethnic mix. Many live in low-income neighbourhoods where water shortages are common and public transportation poor. The local economy is largely dependent on tourism and tea growing. The growth in tourism and badly planned urbanisation have both put stress on the region's fragile ecology. (Full article...)
Darjeeling is a town in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the headquarters of Darjeeling district, in the Shiwalik Hills on the lower range of the Himalaya, at an average elevation of 6,982 ft (2,128 m). During the British Raj in India, Darjeeling's temperate climate led to its development as a hill station for British residents to escape the heat of the plains during the summers. Darjeeling is internationally famous for its tea industry and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The tea growers of the area developed distinctive hybrids of black tea and fermenting techniques, with many blends considered among the world's finest. The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway connecting the town with the plains was declared a World Heritage Site in 1999 and has one of the few steam locomotives still in service in India. Darjeeling has several British-style public schools, which attract students from many parts of India and neighbouring countries. The town, along with neighbouring Kalimpong, was a major center for the demand of a separate Gorkhaland state in the 1980s, though the separatist movement has gradually decreased over the past decade due to the setting up of an autonomous hill council. In recent years the town's fragile ecology is threatened by a rising demand for environmental resources, stemming from growing tourist traffic and poorly planned urbanisation.
