A region and former kingdom of northeast India in the eastern Himalaya Mountains between Nepal and Bhutan. Long isolated from the outside world, Sikkim was settled by Tibetans in the 16th century and became a British protectorate in 1890. Sikkim passed to India in 1949 and became a state of that country in 1975.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
