1 Ngultrum, Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan

The smallest note of the Kingdom of Bhutan, issued by the Royal Monetary Authority, the central bank set up in 1982 to take over the issue of the ngultrum — the currency Bhutan introduced in 1974 and pegged at par with the Indian rupee, which still circulates freely in the country. This "SERIES 2013" printing belongs to the family of designs first struck from 2006 and produced by Giesecke & Devrient of Munich.

The face is given over entirely to Buddhist emblem. Two stylised dragons — the thunder dragon Druk that gives Bhutan its own name, Druk Yul, the "Land of the Thunder Dragon" — flank the Dharmachakra, the Wheel of the Law, set among auspicious symbols. The reverse shows Simtokha Dzong, the fortress-monastery guarding the approach to Thimphu, built in 1629 by Ngawang Namgyal, the lama who first unified Bhutan, and reckoned the oldest surviving dzong in the country. Together the two faces put the dharma and the fortified monastery — Bhutan's twin pillars of religion and state — on its humblest banknote.