The Ngalop are dominant in western and northern Bhutan, including Thimphu and the Dzongkha-speaking region.

The term Ngalop may subsume several related linguistic and cultural groups, such as the Kheng people and speakers of Bumthang language.

[4] Together the Ngalop, Sharchops and tribal groups constituted up to 72 percent of the population in the late 1980s according to official Bhutanese statistics.

As Ngalops are politically and culturally dominant in Bhutan, Dzongkha is the language of government and education throughout the kingdom.

[1][2][7] Ngalops largely follow Tibetan Buddhism, particularly the Drukpa Lineage of the Kagyu school of Vajrayana that is the state religion of Bhutan.