Cities and towns Thimphu, the largest city and capital of Bhutan. Damphu, the administrative headquarters of Tsirang District. Jakar, the administrative headquarters of Bumthang District and the place where Buddhism entered Bhutan. Mongar, the eastern commercial hub of the country. Paro, site of the international airport. Phuentsholing, Bhutan's commercial hub. Punakha, the old capital. Samdrup Jongkhar, the southeastern town on the border with India. Trashigang, administrative headquarters of Trashigang District, the most populous district in the country. Trongsa, in central Bhutan, which has the largest and the most magnificent of all the dzongs in Bhutan. Religion It is estimated that between two-thirds and three-quarters of the Bhutanese population follow Vajrayana Buddhism, which is also the state religion. About one-quarter to one-third are followers of Hinduism. Other religions account for less than 1% of the population. The current legal framework in principle guarantees freedom of religion; proselytism, however, is forbidden by a royal government decision and by judicial interpretation of the Constitution. Buddhism was introduced to Bhutan in the 7th century AD. Tibetan king Songtsän Gampo (reigned 627–649), a convert to Buddhism, ordered the construction of two Buddhist temples, at Bumthang in central Bhutan and at Kyichu Lhakhang (near Paro) in the Paro Valley. Languages The national language is Dzongkha (Bhutanese), one of 53 languages in the Tibetan language family. The script, locally called Chhokey (literally, "Dharma language"), is identical to classical Tibetan. In Bhutan's education system, English is the medium of instruction, while Dzongkha is taught as the national language. Ethnologue lists 24 languages currently spoken in Bhutan, all of them in the Tibeto-Burman family, except Nepali, an Indo-Aryan language. Until the 1980s, the government sponsored the teaching of Nepali in schools in southern Bhutan. With the adoption of the Driglam Namzhag (Bhutanese code of etiquette) and its expansion into the idea of strengthening the role of Dzongkha, Nepali was dropped from the curriculum. The languages of Bhutan are still not well characterized, and several have yet to be recorded in an in-depth academic grammar. Before the 1980s, the Lhotshampa (Nepali-speaking community), mainly based in southern Bhutan, constituted approximately 30% of the population. However, after a purge of Lhotshaampas from 1990 to 1992 this number might not accurately reflect the current population. Dzongkha is partially intelligible with Sikkimese and spoken natively by 25% of the population. Tshangla, the language of the Sharchop and the principal pre-Tibetan language of Bhutan, is