The
Bhutia བོད་རིགས (in
Sikkim: Denzongpa; ; "inhabitants of Denzong;" in
Bhutan:
Dukpa) are a community of people of
Tibetan ancestry, who speak
Sikkimese, a
Tibetan dialect fairly mutually intelligible to
standard Tibetan. In 2001, the Bhutia numbered around 70,300. Bhutia here refers to Sikkimese and Nepalese of Tibetan ancestry; in contrast, the
Bhotiya are a larger family of related Tibetan peoples in northeastern
Nepal of which the Bhutia are one member group.