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Perched in the Himalayas between India and China, Bhutan is 70% forested. The land rises from the low, tropical southern strip, through the fertile central valleys, to the high Himalayas, inhabited by seminomadic yak herders. Formally a Buddhist state where power is shared by the king and the government, Bhutan began modernizing in the 1960s, but has chosen to do so gradually, and remains largely closed to the outside world.