Located along the eastern part of the Himalayan range, Bhutan is surrounded by India and China.
Although number plates in Bhutan are traditionally written in English, some plates include annotations in Dzongkha, the
native language. The current series of car registrations came into effect in 1990, with the previous series running from 1978 to 1990. The present series has red number plates with white lettering. The format of the registration is LL-D-DDDD, with L being a letter and D being a digit. The first two letters and first digit are the region identifier, showing where the vehicle was registered (i.e. BP-1 stands for the capital Thimpu). The format of the previous series of vehicle registrations was LLL DDDD, with the first three letters being the region identifier (i.e. BWP stood for the Western region).
