But a lot can happen in four decades, especially if the country is ruled by an enlightened being. His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck has presided over Bhutan since 1972, when, at age 16, he became the youngest monarch in the world. In his 34-year reign, King Wangchuck has pulled Bhutan out of the Middle Ages, expanding a 2,700-mile road system and providing universal health care and free education. Subsistence farming is still the mainstay for about 90 percent of the population, but the nation is enjoying more prosperity and modernity than ever before. In 1999, the king legalized Internet use and television viewing (Bhutan was the last place on the planet to permit the latter), allowing satellite dishes to sprout on rooftops in the remotest villages.

There are three screaming headlines about the fourth royal Wangchuck: First, his four gorgeous wives live in separate residences in the most fashionable neighborhood of Thimphu, the capital city, while the king himself lives in a humble log cabin outside of town, to maintain the privacy he craves. Second, the devout Buddhist was once a fanatical basketball player, but he has recently switched his loyalties to golf; and third, in the late eighties, he dreamed up one of the most revolutionary concepts in contemporary world politics: gross national happiness.

Quantifying human happiness is an elusive project, but the king framed it around four steadfast pillars: environmental preservation, cultural promotion, economic development, and good governance. So instead of billboards advertising real estate deals or cheap cell-phone plans, Bhutan's public ad spaces are consumed by slogans like "Feel the environment," "Love nature," and "Trees are deep, dark, and lovely."

By law, the nation must maintain 60 percent of its land as forest, a mandate that the king holds inviolable. To protect the high country, mountain climbing is banned. As for fishing, catch-and-eat is frowned upon. Selling tobacco products and using plastic bags (which cause litter) are also forbidden.

"The king is way ahead of his time," Bruce Bunting, a vice president at the World Wildlife Fund, told me. "National parks and reserves cover 26 percent of the country. Bhutan is the last place in the Himalayas where you have continuous forest cover—and the only place on earth where tigers coexist with snow leopards."

The most obvious evidence of cultural promotion, the second pillar of happiness, is the requirement that every Bhutanese man, woman, and child wear traditional dress, which they can accessorize as they please. For females, that means a kimono-like kira—a hand-woven ankle-length dress often paired with high heels. Males wear a knee-length bathrobe-type outfit called a gho, which they usually pimp out with argyle socks, a baseball hat, and shades. The dress code is lifted on weekends, which makes designer jeans a coveted import.

Ancient traditions still hold sway, but the 21st century is gaining ground. Bhutan's economic revenues are expected to surge in 2006 after a $900 million India-financed hydroelectric plant on the Wangchu River begins supplying power to northern India, for which Bhutan can charge hefty fees. In Thimphu, construction crews are putting the last touches on a brand-new five-star Taj hotel.

Even the Buddha is getting in on the action: To commemorate 100 years of the Wangchuck dynasty in 2007, Bhutan approved the building of a $20 million, 169-foot bronze statue of the enlightened one—the largest in the world—on Thimphu's outskirts.

The most ironic step the king has taken toward fulfilling his good-governance goals was his recent announcement that he's quitting. Last December, after spending four years devising a new 34-article constitution, which he posted on the Internet so that citizens could offer comments, he proclaimed to a crowd of 8,000 in the far-eastern village of Trashiyangtse that he will abdicate the throne in 2008 to his Oxford-educated son Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck. If all goes according to plan, the crown prince, now 26, will lead the country's transition from a monarchy to a parliamentary democracy. His Majesty's announcement came as such a shock to his subjects that many of them wept at the news. But his strategy was simple. "The best time to change a political system," the king told the gathering, "is when the country enjoys stability and peace."