Travel

 Dharamshala dɑːrəmʃɑːlə, Hindi: [d̪ərmʃaːla; also spelled Dharamsala is a town in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It serves as the winter capital of the state and the administrative headquarters of the Kangra district since 1855. The town also hosts the 14th Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile. Dharamshala was a municipal council until 2015, when it was upgraded to a municipal corporation.

The town is located in the Kangra Valley, in the shadow of the Dhauladhar range of the Himalayas at an altitude of 1,457 metres 4,780 ft. References to Dharamshala and its surrounding areas are found in ancient Hindu scriptures such as Rig Veda and Mahabharata. The region was under Mughal influence before it was captured by the Sikh Empire in 1785. The East India Company captured the region for the British following the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1846, from when it became part of the British Indian province of the Punjab. Post Indian Independence in 1947, it remained as a small hill station. In 1960, the Central Tibetan Administration was moved to Dharamshala when the 14th Dalai Lama established the Tibetan administration-in-exile after he had to flee Tibet.

In 2015 Dharamshala was included in the Smart Cities Mission and hence will soon have smart solutions implemented for infrastructure and clean environment.

Dharamshala can be viewed as a twin settlement, Upper Dharamshala, located at an elevation of approximately 1,830 metres, is home to the official residence and headquarters of the 14th Dalai Lama. This area, which includes the well-known suburbs of McLeod Ganj and Forsyth Ganj, still reflects a distinctly colonial character, echoing its British-era legacy. In contrast, Lower Dharamshala, situated at around 1,380 metres, has evolved into a bustling commercial hub, serving as the town's primary centre for trade and business.

The economy of the region is highly dependent on agriculture and tourism. The town is now a major hill station and spiritual centre.

As of 2024, Dharamshala is the second most populous city in Himachal Pradesh, with a population of approximately 53,543, ranking only after the state capital, Shimla.

Etymology

Dharamshala Devanagari: धर्मशाला; ITRANS: Dharmashala; IAST: Dharmaśālā) is a Hindi word derived from Sanskrit that is a compound of the words dharma धर्म and shālā शाला, literally 'House or place of Dharma'. In common usage, the word refers to a shelter or rest house for spiritual pilgrims. When permanent settlements were established in the region, there was one such rest house from which the settlement took its name.

Due to a lack of uniform observance of conventions for Hindi transcription and transliteration of the script used to write it, Devanagari, the name of the town has been variously romanised in English and other languages as Dharamshala, Dharamsala, Dharmshala and Dharmsala. These four permutations result from two variables: the transcription of the word धर्म dharma—particularly the second syllable  and that of the third syllable . A strict transliteration of धर्म as written would be dharma . In the modern spoken Hindi of the region, there is a common metathesis in which the vowel and consonant sounds in the second syllable of certain words including धर्म are transposed, which changes dharma to dharam pronounced somewhere between  and . Regarding the third syllable, the Devanagari श corresponds to the English sh sound,  and thus शाला is transcribed in English as shala. Therefore, the most accurate phonetic transcription of the Hindi धर्मशाला into Roman script for common non-technical English usage is either 'Dharamshala' or, less commonly, Dharmshala, both of which render the sh  sound of श in English as 'sh' to convey the correct native pronunciation, 'Dharamshala' dʱərəmˈːlaː or Dharmshala dʱərmˈaːlaː. Regardless of spelling variations, the correct native pronunciation is with the sh sound .