1.   Bhutan, wedged between China and India, is the only independent Himalayan Buddhist kingdom to survive political changes in the region in the last half century.

2.   Bhutan is the only remaining independent Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas.

3.   Bhutan is the last of a group of independent Buddhist kingdoms in the Himalayas, which once included Tibet, Ladakh and Sikkim.

4.   Okinawa was once an independent kingdom, and its inhabitants are culturally different from other Japanese.

5.   There is, however, Bhutan, the last independent Buddhist kingdom of the Himalayas.

6.   Youngters lounge among ruins at Sukhothai, site of the first independent Thai kingdom.

7.   Catalan is the cornerstone of a strong regional culture in an area that was once an independent kingdom.

8.   Montenegro, an independent kingdom before World War I, paid dearly for that loyalty.

9.   Pakistan controls one-third of the formerly independent kingdom.

10.   The mapmakers carved out a sliver of the old Barotseland, a onetime independent kingdom that now lies mainly in Zambia.