78,000
The Monpa (Tibetan ??????; simplified Chinese ???; traditional Chinese ???; pinyin Ménbà zú) are an ethnic group of Tibetan descent in the Indian territory of Arunachal Pradesh, with a population of 50,000, centered in the districts of Tawang and West Kameng. Another 25,000 of them can be found in the district of Cuona in Tibet, where they are known as Menba. Of the 45,000 Monpas who live in Arunachal Pradesh, about 20,000 of them live in Tawang district, where they constitute about 97% of the district's population, and almost all of the remainder can be found in the West Kameng district, where they form about 77% of the district's population. A small number of them may be found in bordering areas of East Kameng[1] and Bhutan (2,500).
They also share very close affinity with the Sharchops of Bhutan. Their language belongs to the Tibeto-Burman family, but it is significantly different from the Eastern Tibetan dialect. It is written with the Tibetan script.
The Monpa are sub-divided into six sub-groups because of their variations in their language. They are namely
