Margherita is on Dihing river at the foot of the Patkai Range, and was named by Italian railway engineers in the late I 9th century after the Queen of Italy. The town is surrounded by tea estates and is the Northeast headquarters of Coal India Ltd. The last of the steam railway engines in Assam is still operating.

Ledo is a small coal mining town of Ledo, 6 km northwest of Margherita, was the headquarters of Northern Combat Area Command during the Second World War and is the start of the 471 km Stilwell Road.

Named after Gen Joseph Stilwell, the road was the most ambitious and costliest engineering project of the war (US$ 1 37,000000 at the time). Once a two lane, all-weather bitumen highway linking Ledo with Myitkyina in North Burma through the Pangso Pass and with Kunming in China (1 029 miles) it is now closed beyond Nampong in Arunachal Pradesh. A sign, 6 km west of Ledo, commemorates the Road to Mandalay but there is little else that remains of the massive Allied presence here.