A Tamang village that kept its shape
Gatlang grew as a farming village of the Tamang, the largest of the hill peoples around the Kathmandu Valley. Families farmed maize, millet, barley and potatoes on terraces, kept cattle and goats on the high pastures, and worked as porters on the trade route to Kerung in Tibet, which ran down the Bhote Koshi a few hours to the east. Buddhism came through lamas trained in Tibet, while shamans, the bombo, kept older healing traditions alive. Those links with the north still show in the gompa, the prayer flags and some of the words people use.
Because it lay away from the main trekking trail and road, Gatlang changed slowly. Its houses kept their stone walls and carved timber, and the wood, smoked by cooking fires over many years, darkened until the village looks almost black from a distance. In the 1991 census it had about 2,500 people in some 500 households, making it a substantial settlement for this altitude. Walking through the village today, the closeness of the houses, the shared walls and narrow passages tell you about a community that built for warmth, defence and shared work rather than privacy.
Change came with the road and with hydropower: the Chilime project in the valley below brought jobs, and a jeep road reached the village. The 2015 earthquake damaged many houses, and some rebuilt in new materials. The Tamang Heritage Trail and community homestays gave villagers a way to earn from visitors while keeping their culture at the centre. The floods of 2025 and 2026 struck the valley below, and the village again faces a period of rebuilding links to the outside.
