Few people know

In 1664 King Pratap Malla set a stone inscription into the wall of the Kathmandu Durbar Square in fifteen languages and scripts. Local tradition says anyone who can read all of them will make milk flow from the spout beneath it.

Nepal Sambat, the Newar lunar calendar, began in 879 CE. Tradition credits a Kathmandu merchant, Sankhadhar Sakhwa, with paying off the people's debts so a new era could start. Newar New Year is still celebrated on the day after Tihar's Laxmi Puja.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site called Kathmandu Valley, inscribed in 1979, is a single listing made up of seven monument zones: the three Durbar Squares, Swayambhu, Boudhanath, Pashupati and Changunarayan. It sat on the List of World Heritage in Danger from 2003 to 2007.

Narayanhiti Palace, the royal palace until the monarchy ended in 2008, takes its name from a stone water spout, the Narayan hiti, at its eastern gate. The palace is now a museum.

The name Kathmandu comes from Kasthamandap, Sanskrit for wooden pavilion: a public rest house in the Durbar Square area that Newars call Maru Satta. The city was also long known as Kantipur.

The stone guardians on Nyatapola's five stair platforms are arranged so each pair is said to be ten times stronger than the pair below: two legendary wrestlers, then elephants, lions, griffins and finally the goddesses Baghini and Singhini.

Bhaktapur was the capital of the whole Kathmandu Valley until the late 15th century. Only after King Yaksha Malla's death in 1482 did the kingdom split into the separate city-states of Bhaktapur, Kathmandu and Patan.

From 1974 to the mid-1980s, the German-funded Bhaktapur Development Project paved streets, built drains and restored temples, one of the first large urban conservation projects in Nepal. Its work is a reason the old town is so intact.

Boudhanath lies on the old trade route from Tibet, which entered the Kathmandu Valley through the village of Sankhu to the north-east. Tibetan merchants traditionally stopped at the stupa to pray before and after the journey across the Himalaya.

The stupa's Tibetan name, Jarung Khashor, refers to a legend of permission given that could not be taken back. Its Newar name is Khasti, and the Nepali name Boudhanath means lord of wisdom.

After the 2015 earthquake damaged its upper section, the harmika and spire of Boudhanath were removed and rebuilt, largely funded by Buddhist donors rather than the state, and the stupa reopened in November 2016.

Rato Machhindranath, the rain god of the valley, spends about six months of each year in Bungamati and six in Patan. In every twelfth year, the chariot is built in Bungamati and pulled all the way to Patan.

The shikhara temple of Rato Machhindranath in Bungamati's main square collapsed in the April 2015 earthquake, along with much of the village. It has since been rebuilt, with much of the work done by local craftsmen.

Neighbouring Khokana, a short walk away, is known across the valley for its mustard oil, pressed in traditional mills. The village has long sold its oil in Kathmandu's markets.

The stone pillar at Changunarayan, inscribed by King Manadeva in 464 CE, is the oldest dated inscription found in Nepal. It tells how he talked his widowed mother out of following his father in death.

Changunarayan is one of the seven monument zones of the Kathmandu Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is often described as one of the oldest temple sites in the valley.

In the courtyard, a 7th-century stone sculpture of Vishnu riding Garuda, known as Garuda Narayan or Chanda Narayan, is among the finest early carvings in Nepal. The kneeling Garuda before the temple door has a human face.

Dhulikhel Hospital was founded in 1996 as a community-based, non-profit hospital with local support, and serves as a teaching hospital of Kathmandu University. It also runs outreach health centres in rural villages.

The BP Highway, built with Japanese assistance, starts near Dhulikhel and runs south about 160 km through Sindhuli to Bardibas in the Terai, giving the valley a shorter route to eastern Nepal.

Kathmandu University, founded in 1991 as Nepal's first privately managed public university, has its main campus in Dhulikhel, about 30 km east of Kathmandu, so the old Newar town is also a university town.

The Kumari of Kathmandu is chosen from girls of the Newar Shakya clan. While she holds the role, her feet are not supposed to touch the ground outside her house, so she is carried or travels by chariot during festivals.

At Budhanilkantha, on the northern edge of the city, a 5 m long stone Vishnu lies on a bed of coiled serpents in a pond. By tradition, Nepal's kings never went to see it, following a prophecy that a king who did would die.

Jhochhen tole, just south of the Durbar Square, became Freak Street in the late 1960s, when overland travellers on the hippie trail stayed in its lodges. Hashish was then sold legally in government-licensed shops, until Nepal banned cannabis in the 1970s.

Prithvi Narayan Shah attacked Kirtipur three times. His first assault in 1757 failed and his commander Kalu Pande was killed, and the second in 1764 also failed. Kirtipur fell only in 1767, after a long siege.

Tribhuvan University, Nepal's oldest university, founded in 1959, has its main campus on the slopes of Kirtipur, so much of the town's modern life revolves around students and teachers.

Taudaha, a small lake below Kirtipur, is believed locally to be the home of Karkotak, king of serpents, after the valley lake drained. It is a winter stop for migratory water birds.

Dorje Lakpa, at 6,966 m, is one of the most recognisable peaks from Nagarkot: a broad, snowy mountain due north in the Jugal range, easy to pick out at sunrise because of its distinctive shape.

Sankhu, a Newar town at the foot of the Nagarkot ridge, was a stage on the old trade route from the valley to Tibet. On a forested hill above it stands the temple of Bajrayogini, an important tantric goddess.

Nagarkot sits on the north-eastern rim of the Kathmandu Valley but lies within Bhaktapur district, so many of its supplies, schools and markets are tied to Bhaktapur town, about 20 km below.

Indreshwar Mahadev in Panauti was built in 1294 and is often described as one of the oldest surviving temples in Nepal. It survived the 2015 earthquake that badly damaged many houses in the town.

Panauti's Makar Mela is held only once every twelve years, for the whole month of Magh, when pilgrims bathe at the triveni ghat where the Punyamati, Roshi and the unseen Rudrawati rivers are said to meet.

Panauti's medieval town was placed on Nepal's tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage status in 1996, for its architecture and its place on the old trade route between Tibet and India.

Only four priests may touch the linga at Pashupatinath. Daily rituals are carried out by two groups: the Bhatta priests, who perform the puja, and the Rajbhandari, Newar helpers and temple caretakers who may not touch the deity.

Upstream of the main temple, Guhyeshwari temple is counted as one of the Shakti Peethas, places where parts of the goddess Sati's body are said to have fallen. Its main shrine is closed to non-Hindus.

The linga inside Pashupatinath has faces in four directions, each an aspect of Shiva: Sadyojata, Vamadeva, Tatpurusha and Aghora. A fifth aspect, Ishana, is imagined facing upwards.

The Manga Hiti stone spout, just north of the Krishna Mandir in Patan Durbar Square, has an inscription dated to 570 CE. It still flows, and residents use it daily, making it one of the oldest working public water systems in the valley.

Kumbheshwar temple in northern Patan is one of only two free-standing five-tiered pagoda temples in the Kathmandu Valley; the other is Nyatapola in Bhaktapur. Tradition says its pond is fed by water from the lake at Gosainkunda.

At the Golden Temple, Kwa Bahal, the daily rituals are performed by a boy from the community, usually under the age of twelve, who serves as priest for a month at a time before the duty passes to another boy.

The Pharping hydropower station, built in 1911 under Rana prime minister Chandra Shumsher, was the first hydroelectric plant in Nepal. It supplied electricity to Kathmandu's palaces, and its old building still stands near the town.

Tibetan Buddhists hold that Padmasambhava attained realisation in the caves at Pharping, especially Yanglesho, beside the Shesh Narayan temple, making the town one of the most important pilgrimage sites linked to him outside Tibet.

At Dakshinkali, south of Pharping, devotees sacrifice male animals, usually goats and roosters, to the goddess Kali, especially on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The crowds are biggest during Dashain, in September or October.

Although Swayambhu is a Buddhist site, the long eastern stairway that most pilgrims climb was built in the 17th century by Pratap Malla, the Hindu king of Kathmandu, one of many Hindu rulers who honoured the stupa.

Swayambhu is shared by two Buddhist traditions: Newar Vajrayana priests perform the daily rituals at the stupa, while Tibetan monasteries on the same hill hold their own pujas. Hindus also worship here, especially at the temple of the goddess Harati.

According to the Swayambhu Purana, the goddess Hariti, once feared as a taker of children, heard the Buddha preach at Swayambhu and vowed to protect the stupa and children. Her temple stands beside the main stupa.

Pokhara Valley's gravels came from catastrophe. Researchers have dated megaflood and landslide deposits from the Sabche Cirque and Annapurna IV to medieval times, around the 11th to 14th centuries, and one 2023 study links up to 23 km3 of material to a single collapse around 1190 AD.

Machhapuchhre has never been officially climbed. A 1957 British team led by Jimmy Roberts stopped about 46 m below the summit by agreement with King Mahendra, and Nepal has issued no permits for the peak since.

The Annapurna Sanctuary was not entered by outsiders until 1956, when Colonel Jimmy Roberts pushed up the Modi Khola gorge between Hiunchuli and Machhapuchhre while scouting the next year's attempt on the fishtail peak.

In 2016 nine lakes of the Pokhara Valley, including Phewa, Begnas and Rupa, were listed together as a single Ramsar wetland of international importance, covering about 261 km2 with their catchments.

Manang district gets the lowest rainfall of any district in Nepal because the Annapurna range blocks the monsoon, which is why the Manang side of the Annapurna Circuit stays walkable in summer.

No outsider entered the Annapurna Sanctuary until 1956, when Colonel Jimmy Roberts forced a route up the Modi Khola gorge while reconnoitring Machhapuchhre for the 1957 attempt.

Because it is enclosed by peaks mostly over 7,000 m, the Annapurna Sanctuary receives only around seven hours of direct sunlight a day even at the height of summer.

The south face of Annapurna I, which towers over base camp, was first climbed in 1970 by a British expedition led by Chris Bonington; Dougal Haston and Don Whillans reached the summit.

During the Rana period Bandipur was so prosperous and prestigious that it was granted special permission to have its own library; the library still exists and was renovated in 2000.

Until 1998 Bandipur had only an unreliable track, often impassable in the monsoon; the 8 km access road from Dumre on the Prithvi Highway reconnected it that year.

Notre Dame School in Bandipur was founded in 1985 by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, a Catholic order, and draws students from far beyond the town.

The water level of Begnas Lake is managed by a dam built in 1988 on its western outlet, the Khudi Khola, which stores water for irrigating fields downstream.

Begnas, Rupa and Phewa are three of nine lakes listed together on 2 February 2016 as the Lake Cluster of Pokhara Valley Ramsar site, covering about 261 km2 including their catchments.

Rupa Lake, over the ridge from Begnas, covers only about 1.35 km2 with an average depth of 3 m, yet 36 species of waterbird have been recorded on it.

At the 1991 census Dhampus village development committee had 2,753 people in 547 households; it lies on the Mardi Himal trekking route and is close to Australian Camp, with views of Annapurna, Dhaulagiri and Machhapuchhre.

Gurung religious life has two kinds of traditional priests besides Buddhist lamas: the Pachyu (Paju) and the Ghyabri (Ghyabring), who perform rites such as funerals, and some villages keep traces of pre-Buddhist Bon practice.

The Gurung call themselves Tamu and their language Tamu Kyi, a tonal Tibeto-Burman language of the Tamangic group, related to Thakali and Manange.

The Annapurna Conservation Area Project began in 1986 with Ghandruk as its pilot village, managed by what is now the National Trust for Nature Conservation, and pioneered community-run conservation in Nepal.

Ghandruk was its own village development committee until 2015, when it became part of Annapurna Rural Municipality; at the 2021 census its area had 5,316 people in 1,228 households.

Annapurna South (7,219 m), which dominates Ghandruk's view, was first climbed in 1964, and Hiunchuli beside it is in fact an extension of the same massif.

Ghorepani was named as a place where traders on the old route found water for their horses; as roads replaced the trade path, the village came to depend almost entirely on trekking.

Mahabir Pun, from Nangi village near Poon Hill, built the Nepal Wireless Networking Project to link remote Himalayan villages by radio relay, work recognised by the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation.

The tree rhododendron, Rhododendron arboreum, which turns the Ghorepani forests red in spring, is the national flower of Nepal and grows from Pakistan to Thailand.

Prithvi Narayan Shah was born on 7 January 1723 in the part of Gorkha palace known as Dhuni Pari; he became King of Gorkha in 1743 and died in 1775 at Devighat in Nuwakot.

Gorkha town was created as Prithvinarayan Municipality in 1996, named after the king, and renamed Gorkha in 2009 after the monarchy was abolished.

A fair is held every year on Baisakh Purnima, the full moon of April–May, at the Gorakhnath cave beside the palace, where the yogi is said to have meditated.

Manangi traders received special dispensation to trade in Southeast Asia, travelling abroad with precious stones, musk and herbs; they are counted among Nepal's best-known trading communities.

Manang's airstrip at Humde, about 2.5 km from the town, was inaugurated in 1985 but has had no commercial flights since 2012; access is now by jeep road or on foot.

Manang district receives the lowest rainfall of any district in Nepal, because it lies north of the Himalaya, which blocks the monsoon winds.

Mardi Himal (5,587 m) was first climbed in 1961 by Basil Goodfellow, and is separated from Machhapuchhre by a col about 5,200 m high.

Machhapuchhre, which fills the view from Mardi's ridge, has had no climbing permits issued since a 1957 British team stopped about 46 m below its summit by agreement with King Mahendra.

The Himalayan monal, called danphe in Nepali and Nepal's national bird, lives on high forest edges and grassy slopes across the Himalaya, and the male's metallic plumage flashes green, purple, copper and blue.

The Panchase Protected Forest covers about 58 km2 across Kaski, Parbat and Syangja districts, ranging from roughly 1,450 m to the 2,517 m summit.

Around 125 orchid species have been recorded at Panchase, among more than 600 flowering plants, and three of the orchids, including Eria pokharensis, are known only from this forest.

On the ridge between Pokhara and Panchase, the Pumdikot viewpoint at about 1,500 m holds the second tallest statue of Shiva in Nepal, after the Kailashnath Mahadev statue near Kathmandu.

Batulechaur, at Pokhara's northern edge, is home to Gandharva families, also called Gaine, the hereditary wandering musicians of the hills who carry the sarangi fiddle and once spread news between villages in song.

Davis Falls, Patale Chhango in Nepali, is named after a Swiss woman who drowned there on 31 July 1961. The stream from Phewa drops into a tunnel about 150 m long and 30 m below ground before passing through Gupteshwor Mahadev cave.

Matepani Gumba, on a hill east of the city about 5 km from Mahendrapul, was established in 1960 by Nyeshang people who had moved down from Manang to Pokhara, long before trekking brought outsiders to their home valley.

Sarangkot was a separate village development committee until 2015, when it was merged into Pokhara as Ward 18; at the 1991 census it had about 5,060 people in 1,010 households.

Kaskikot, the hill west of Sarangkot along the same ridge, was the seat of the old Kaski kingdom that gave Kaski District its name; it is now Ward 24 of Pokhara.

Three of the world's ten highest mountains can be seen from Sarangkot on a clear day: Dhaulagiri (8,167 m), Annapurna I (8,091 m) and Manaslu (8,163 m).

Sagarmatha National Park was created in 1976 and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. It covers about 1,148 square kilometres of Khumbu, including Everest, Lhotse, Cho Oyu and the Sherpa villages.

The name Sherpa comes from shar, east, and pa, people. Sherpa ancestors migrated from Kham in eastern Tibet roughly 500 years ago, crossing the Nangpa La into Khumbu.

The Gokyo and associated lakes in upper Khumbu were designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance in 2007, covering about 7,770 hectares.

Edmund Hillary's Himalayan Trust built Khumjung School in 1961, the Lukla airstrip in 1964 and Kunde Hospital in 1966, all at the request of Sherpa communities.

Thame, a small village west of Namche, is the home of Kami Rita Sherpa, who holds the record for the most ascents of Everest, and of Apa Sherpa, who held it before him.

Island Peak was named in 1951 by members of Eric Shipton's party because it looks like an island in a sea of ice. It was renamed Imja Tse in 1983, though the old name stuck.

In 2016 the Nepal Army lowered Imja Tsho, the glacial lake below Island Peak, by about 3.4 m through an outlet channel to reduce the risk of a glacial-lake outburst flood.

Lhotse's south face, seen end-on from Chhukung, rises about 3.2 km in a short horizontal distance and is one of the steepest mountain faces of its size in the world.

Dingboche's fields are enclosed by stone walls built to protect crops of barley, potatoes and buckwheat from cold winds and grazing animals, giving the village its grid-like look from above.

The Himalayan Rescue Association opened its aid post at Pheriche, over the ridge from Dingboche, in 1973. Volunteer doctors staff it in the main trekking seasons and give daily altitude talks.

Dingboche lies on the Imja Khola, which drains from Imja Tsho, one of the fastest-growing glacial lakes in the Everest region. In 2016 the Nepal Army lowered the lake by about 3.4 m to cut flood risk.

Nepal and China jointly announced in December 2020 that Everest's height is 8,848.86 m, a remeasurement that replaced the long-used figure of 8,848 m.

On 18 April 2014 an ice avalanche in the Khumbu Icefall, above base camp, killed 16 Nepali mountain guides. It led to the cancellation of most of that year's climbing season.

Everest's summit is not visible from Everest Base Camp itself, because the west shoulder and Nuptse block it. The classic trekkers' view is from Kala Patthar, about 5,644 m, above Gorak Shep.

The Gokyo and associated lakes were designated a Ramsar site, a wetland of international importance, in September 2007, covering about 7,770 hectares at altitudes of roughly 4,700 to 5,000 m.

Hindus regard the Gokyo lakes as sacred, and pilgrims come to bathe in them during the Janai Purnima festival in August, alongside the Buddhist traditions of the Sherpa villages.

From the summit of Gokyo Ri, about 5,357 m, four 8,000 m peaks are visible on a clear day: Cho Oyu, Everest, Lhotse and Makalu.

Trulshik Rinpoche fled Rongbuk Monastery in Tibet in 1959 with many monks and nuns, and built Thubten Chholing near Junbesi in 1968. It became one of the largest Tibetan Buddhist nunneries in the Himalaya.

Trulshik Rinpoche, the founder of Thubten Chholing, was one of the teachers of the 14th Dalai Lama and became head of the Nyingma school in 2010, a year before his death in 2011.

Before the Lukla airstrip opened in 1964, the walking route through Jiri, the Lamjura La and Junbesi was the main approach to Khumbu and Everest from the Kathmandu Valley.

Khumjung School was built by Edmund Hillary's Himalayan Trust in 1961 and began with two classrooms. It now teaches pre-school, primary and secondary pupils, over 350 of them.

The yeti scalp kept in Khumjung's gompa was taken abroad in 1960 by Hillary's expedition for examination. Scientists concluded it had been moulded from the hide of a serow, a goat-antelope.

Kunde Hospital, a short walk from Khumjung, was founded in 1966 by Hillary's Himalayan Trust and still serves Khumbu villagers, porters and trekkers.

Edmund Hillary had Lukla's airstrip built in 1964 to fly in building materials for the schools and clinics of his Himalayan Trust. Trekking tourism came later; the runway was not paved until 2001.

The airport was renamed Tenzing-Hillary Airport in 2008 to honour Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, who made the first confirmed ascent of Everest on 29 May 1953.

Khumbu's local government, the Khumbu Pasanglhamu Rural Municipality, is named after Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, the first Nepali woman to reach the summit of Everest, in 1993. She died during the descent.

Everest's Nepali name, Sagarmatha, was coined in the 1960s by the Nepali historian Baburam Acharya. Sherpas and Tibetans have long called the mountain Chomolungma.

Sagarmatha National Park was created in 1976 and inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979. Its headquarters and visitor centre stand on the hill at Mendalphu, directly above Namche.

Namche lies above the confluence of the Dudh Koshi and the Bhote Koshi. The Bhote Koshi valley leads west past Thame to the Nangpa La, the old trade pass to Tibet used by Sherpa salt traders.

Pangboche's gompa was famous for a purported yeti scalp and mummified hand. The hand was stolen in 1991. DNA tests in 2011 on a finger taken from it in 1959 showed the finger was human.

Sungdare Sherpa, a native of Pangboche, held the record in 1989 for the most Everest summits, having reached the top five times.

The Pangboche school was built by Edmund Hillary's Himalayan Trust in 1963, two years after the first Trust school at Khumjung.

Sherpas call Solu 'Shorong'. Their ancestors are believed to have migrated from Kham in eastern Tibet roughly 500 years ago, settling in both Khumbu and the lower Solu valleys.

Chiwong Gompa, on a cliff above Phaplu, is one of three monasteries in Solukhumbu that stage the Mani Rimdu festival, along with Tengboche and Thame.

Salleri, beside Phaplu, is the administrative headquarters of Solukhumbu District, the district that contains Mount Everest and Sagarmatha National Park.

Tengboche was founded in 1916 by Lama Gulu with strong links to Rongbuk Monastery in Tibet, and was the first celibate monastery of the Nyingma school in Khumbu.

The monastery has been destroyed twice: by an earthquake in 1934 and by fire in 1989. Both times it was rebuilt, the second time with volunteers and international assistance.

Tenzing Norgay was sent to Tengboche as a boy to become a monk. He left the monastic life and later reached Everest's summit with Edmund Hillary in 1953.

Thame and Thameteng were the last year-round villages on the salt trade route between Tibet, Nepal and India. Traders crossed the Nangpa La glacier pass, about 5,700 m, to reach Tibet.

Thame was the childhood home of Tenzing Norgay and is the home village of Apa Sherpa and Kami Rita Sherpa, two climbers who have each held the record for the most Everest ascents.

On 16 August 2024 two glacial lakes above Thame burst after a rock avalanche, releasing a flood that destroyed at least 15 structures in the village. Scientists linked it to the warming cryosphere.

Researchers comparing the Tharu with neighbouring groups in the Terai found malaria nearly seven times less common among Tharu, and follow-up work found thalassemia genes in almost all Tharu studied, a likely reason they could live in the malarial forest.

Chitwan held about 800 rhinos in 1950, but after malaria eradication and resettlement only 95 remained by the end of the 1960s, which pushed the government to create Nepal's first national park.

Chitwan National Park, Parsa National Park and India's Valmiki National Park join to form one block of protected forest of about 2,075 square kilometres, so tigers and rhinos cross the border freely.

Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve was designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance in December 1987, Nepal's first Ramsar site, and it holds the country's only wild water buffalo.

Nepal's only working passenger railway runs on the plains of Mithila, from Jaynagar in Bihar across the border to Janakpur and beyond, on a line first opened in the 1930s.

Amaltari's community homestay was established in 2013 in the buffer zone of Chitwan National Park and was named the best homestay programme in Nepal by the Ministry of Tourism in 2017.

The Bote of Amaltari are one of the Terai's river peoples, traditionally fishing and ferrying travellers across the Narayani in dugout canoes long before tourism reached the village.

Amaltari lies about 7 km south of Kawasoti, the headquarters of Nawalpur district, on the western side of Chitwan National Park, part of which extends into Nawalpur.

Barauli's homestay opened in February 2015 with purpose-built mud-and-thatch cottages, because ordinary Tharu houses are small and not designed for guests.

Each Barauli cottage is owned by a local woman, who receives monthly rent directly into her own bank account, giving women in the village an independent income.

Barauli and nearby Amaltari sit in the buffer zone on the western edge of Chitwan National Park, in Nawalpur district, about a 15-minute drive apart.

Bishazari Tal covers about 32 square kilometres at an elevation of about 286 metres and was designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance in August 2003.

The name is Nepali: bis (twenty), hajar (thousand) and tal (lake), meaning twenty thousand lakes, describing the many small ponds and oxbows in the forest.

The wetland's forest provides a wildlife corridor and water source for Bengal tigers, rhinos, sloth bears and smooth-coated otters, and its waters hold mugger crocodiles and rock pythons.

Devghat sits where the Trishuli and Kali Gandaki meet, and below this confluence the river is called the Narayani, which forms the western edge of Chitwan National Park.

Maghe Sankranti draws huge crowds to Devghat each mid-January, making its mela one of the largest religious gatherings in Nepal; no one knows exactly when the tradition began.

A historic suspension bridge links the Tanahun and Chitwan sides of Devghat, and the town has a post-graduate Sanskrit college, the Mahesh Sanskrit Gurukul.

Dhanushadham municipality was created on 18 May 2014 by merging the Govindapur, Umprempur, Yagyabhumi and Dhanushadham village development committees.

Dhanusha Dham lies about 18 km from Janakpur on a concrete road; local buses take about 45 minutes, and a festival is held here every year at Makar Sankranti.

The whole district, Dhanusha, takes its name from the bow (dhanush) of Shiva that Rama broke to win Sita, according to the Ramayana tradition honoured at this temple.

Janaki Mandir is also called the Nau Lakha Mandir, nine lakh temple, after the cost of its construction; Queen Vrisha Bhanu of Tikamgarh completed it in 1910 to 1911.

Janakpur has more than 200 sacred ponds used for ritual bathing; the two most important, Dhanush Sagar and Ganga Sagar, lie close to the city centre.

Ayodhya, honoured as Rama's birthplace, and Janakpur, honoured as Sita's, became sister cities in November 2014.

About 235 gharials lived in the Narayani River in the early 1950s; by 2003 only 38 wild animals were counted, which is why eggs are now collected each year and hatched at the Kasara breeding centre.

Young gharials at the breeding centre are reared to an age of six to nine years before release, because hatchlings in the wild are easily lost to floods, predators and fishing nets.

The gharial takes its name from the ghara, a Hindustani word for an earthen pot, after the round knob that grows on the snout tip of adult males.

Koshi Tappu was designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance in December 1987, making it Nepal's first Ramsar site.

The reserve was established in 1976 and holds Nepal's last remaining population of wild water buffalo, Bubalus arnee, known locally as arna.

Grassland covers about 68 per cent of the reserve and forest only about 6 per cent; around 200 fish species have been recorded in its waters, and the Ganges river dolphin has been sighted in the Koshi.

Elephant polo was first played at Meghauli, and the village became the home of the World Elephant Polo Championships, played under rules set by the World Elephant Polo Association.

Meghauli was a separate Village Development Committee until 2014; after mergers it became part of Bharatpur Metropolitan City in 2016, covering wards 27 and 28.

The village touches more than 25 km of Chitwan National Park's boundary along the Rapti and Narayani rivers, so the buffer zone here is some of the busiest for wildlife crossings.

Parsa covers about 627 square kilometres and ranges from about 435 to 950 metres in the Siwalik (Churia) hills; sal forest makes up about 90 per cent of the park.

Camera trapping in early 2017 detected 19 Bengal tigers in Parsa, compared with an estimated four resident adults in 2008, showing a sharp recovery.

Parsa was a wildlife reserve from 1984 and became a national park in 2017. Together with Chitwan and India's Valmiki it forms a protected forest block of about 2,075 square kilometres.

Chitwan National Park and the lodges around it once sat inside a forest so malarial that the Tharu were among the few people able to live there. Studies found malaria about seven times less common among Tharu than among their neighbours.

In 1997 a buffer zone of about 766 square kilometres was added around Chitwan National Park, and a share of park income is returned to communities living in it, which helped fund community forests near Sauraha.

Chitwan is home to two crocodile species: the mugger, often seen on the Rapti banks near Sauraha, and the critically endangered gharial, which needs deep, clean rivers and is mostly seen on the Narayani.

The Tibetan monk Dharmasvamin passed through Simraungadh in 1236 and described a city surrounded by seven tall walls and 21 water-filled ditches, with a palace of eleven large gates.

Harisimhadeva, the last Karnata king of Simraungadh, fled to the hills of Nepal after Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq's invasion in the 1320s; his descendants are linked to the founding of the Malla dynasty.

Simraungadh's Ram Janaki temple at the Ranivas complex was built in 1878 by Jagat Jung Rana, after his father, Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana, died in 1877 returning from a hunt near here.

Until the Ashoka pillar inscription was uncovered in 1896, the site of the Buddha's birth was not known as Lumbini; local people knew the area as Rummindei, and the district's name Rupandehi recalls the goddess Rupa Devi.

General Khadga Shumsher Rana, who oversaw the 1896 uncovering of the Lumbini inscription, also built Rani Mahal on the Kali Gandaki from 1893 in memory of his wife Tej Kumari.

Ashoka's inscription at Niglihawa contains the earliest known written use of the word stupa, in its Prakrit form 'thube'.

In 2013 Nepal Rastra Bank issued a 100-rupee note featuring Lumbini, with a portrait of Maya Devi in metallic silver on the front.

Nepal's coffee story began in this region: in 1938 the hermit Hira Giri planted coffee seeds brought from Burma in Gulmi district, below Resunga.

The Pali name Devadaha means 'pond of the gods'. The commentaries say the pond came into being without human work, so it was called divine, and its water was supplied to the Koliya palace.

The Devadaha Sutta, number 101 in the Majjhima Nikaya of the Pali Canon, is set 'among the Sakyans, at a town called Devadaha', where the Buddha examined the Jain view of karma and ascetic practice.

Excavations by the Department of Archaeology and the Lumbini Development Trust at Kanya Mai in 2011 uncovered structural ruins, an old well and stone sculptures, including a standing image of Lokeshwor holding a lotus.

In Theravada tradition Gotihawa was known in ancient times as Khemavati, birthplace of Kakusandha Buddha, whose life is told in chapter 22 of the Buddhavamsa in the Pali Canon.

An Italian archaeological mission led by Giovanni Verardi excavated at Gotihawa in the winter of 1994–95 and published its results in the journal Ancient Nepal in 1998.

Scholars have suggested that the inscribed pillar fragments at Nigali Sagar, which were not found in their original place, may belong on the uninscribed pillar base at Gotihawa.

In Buddhist tradition the Nyagrodharama is where Mahaprajapati Gautami, the Buddha's aunt and foster mother, first asked him to let women be ordained. He refused at first; she was later ordained as the first Buddhist nun.

The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang described a stupa south of Kapilavastu marking the place where the Buddha met his father after his enlightenment. Kudan's location, south of Tilaurakot, is one reason it is identified with that grove.

The Nyagrodharama was not just a one-time stop: many suttas in the Pali Canon open with the Buddha staying 'among the Sakyans at Kapilavatthu, in the Nigrodha park', where he taught his own clan on later visits.

Ashoka's inscription records an early tax break: the emperor made the village of Lumbini free of taxes and set its share of produce at one-eighth. It is one of the oldest records of a royal concession in South Asia.

The top of the Ashoka pillar carries a second, much later inscription: 'Om mani padme hum' and a wish for long victory to Prince Ripu Malla, dated 1234 in the Saka era, around 1312 CE.

Excavations led by Durham University with UNESCO and Nepal's Department of Archaeology, published in 2013, found traces of a timber structure beneath the Ashokan brick shrine inside the Maya Devi temple, possibly from the 6th century BCE.

The Nigali Sagar inscription contains the earliest known written record of the word stupa, in its Prakrit form 'thube', in the line recording that Ashoka enlarged Konakamana's stupa.

Alois Führer's 1895 account of ruined monasteries and a great stupa around the pillar was invented; in 1901 it was shown he had copied it almost word for word from Cunningham's report on Sanchi.

Besides Ashoka's Brahmi lines, the pillar carries 'Om mani padme hum' and a wish for King Ripu Malla dated Saka 1234, about 1312 CE, matching a similar line on the Lumbini pillar.

A geophysical survey at Ramagrama revealed a square Kushan-era monastery buried beside the stupa. Its dense brick foundations had stunted crops, and local farmers knew the plot as an unlucky field.

Nepal's Department of Archaeology dates the visible Ramagrama stupa to between the Mauryan and Gupta periods. The mound is about 7 metres high today, while the full stupa complex measures about 10 metres high and 23.5 metres across.

Ramagrama was added to UNESCO's tentative World Heritage list on 23 May 1996 in the cultural category, alongside Tilaurakot, the likely site of ancient Kapilavastu.

General Khadga Shumsher Rana, who built Rani Mahal, is the same man who oversaw the 1896 excavation that uncovered Ashoka's inscription at Lumbini, while serving as governor of the western hills.

Khadga Shumsher was banished to the western hills after a failed attempt in 1887 to remove his brother, Prime Minister Bir Shumsher, and was first exiled to Thada in Gulmi before being allowed to settle in Palpa.

Khadga also named the forest around the palace Rani Ban, the queen's forest, and the river landing Rani Ghat, names still used by local people today.

Coffee was first planted in Nepal in Gulmi district in 1938, when Hira Giri, a hermit returning from Burma, brought seeds to Aanpchaur. Gulmi still grows some of Nepal's best-known hill coffee.

Resunga Municipality was created on 18 May 2014 by merging the village committees of Arkhale, Dubichaur, Simichaur and Tamghas, and takes its name from the sacred hill.

The scholarly volume Resunga: The Mountain of the Horned Sage, edited by Philippe Ramirez and published by Himal Books in 2000, studies religion, society and the Magar communities of Gulmi and Arghakhanchi.

Ridi lies at the meeting point of three districts, Gulmi, Palpa and Syangja, which is one reason it became a shared pilgrimage and market centre for the western hills.

Ridi's Maghe Sankranti fair lasts three days, called Jethi, Maili and Kanchhi Sankranti, the eldest, middle and youngest. Devotees believe bathing in the Kali Gandaki on all three days and worshipping Rishikesh brings liberation.

The Rishikesh complex of Ruru Kshetra was added to UNESCO's World Heritage tentative list on 30 January 2008, noted for its mix of medieval and Sen-period architecture and its living ritual traditions.

The sacred fire in Swargadwari's yagya kunda was lit on a full moon of Baisakh in 1895, and priests and pilgrims say it has burned without going out ever since.

After Nepal's civil war of 1996–2006, donations of straw and hay to Swargadwari fell so low that the ashram's resident cattle were in danger of starving.

Swargadwari is listed in Nepal's national inventory of cultural and historic heritage sites and is counted among the country's most important Hindu pilgrimages.

In the 16th century Palpa's king Mukunda Sen led an army that came close to conquering the Kathmandu Valley, long before the Shah kings of Gorkha unified Nepal.

The United Mission Hospital in Tansen, opened in 1954, is the oldest project of the United Mission to Nepal and one of the main hospitals for the western hills.

The Tansen Durbar, built as the residence of the Rana governors of Palpa, was badly damaged in a Maoist attack in 2006 and later rebuilt; it now houses the Palpa Durbar museum.

Beneath Tilaurakot's brick walls archaeologists found an older wooden palisade dated to the 6th century BCE, laid out on a regular plan, suggesting a planned town existed here around the Buddha's lifetime.

Excavations in 2012 at Lohasariya, a mound just south of the citadel, uncovered about 9 tonnes of iron slag, the waste of an ironworking site radiocarbon dated to a period beginning around 400 BCE.

After the 1896 Lumbini discovery, Alois Führer searched near Tilaurakot for Kapilavastu, found little, and began forging inscriptions on bricks at nearby Sagarwa. He was caught by Vincent Smith and resigned in 1898.

Upper Mustang, the old kingdom of Lo north of Kagbeni, was closed to foreign visitors until 1992. It still has a restricted-area permit with a fee far higher than other trekking areas in Nepal.

Shey Phoksundo National Park, established in 1984 and covering about 3,555 square kilometres of Dolpa and Mugu, is the largest national park in Nepal. It protects Phoksundo Lake, Shey Gompa and snow leopard habitat.

Jigme Dorje Palbar Bista, the last king of Lo, was born in Lo Manthang's palace in 1930. His title ended in 2008 when Nepal abolished its monarchy and became a republic. He died in 2016.

Mustang's valley walls hold some 10,000 man-made caves. The oldest were used as burial chambers as early as about 1,000 BC; later ones became homes, granaries and meditation cells.

Eric Valli's 1999 film Himalaya, about a salt caravan in Dolpo and acted mainly by Dolpo villagers, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, representing Nepal.

Mustang's caves are thought to have been used as burial chambers as early as about 1,000 BC, as homes from around the 10th century and as meditation chambers by the 1400s. The cave sites have been on UNESCO's tentative list since 1996.

In 2010 a team of mountaineers and archaeologists recovered the remains of 27 people from two caves near Samdzong in Upper Mustang, dated to the 3rd–8th centuries, with cut marks on the bones linked to a burial ritual.

Chhoser, also known as Garphu, was a separate village development committee with 728 people at the 1991 census, and was merged into Lomanthang rural municipality in 2017.

Dho, Lang and Tokyu are the three villages collectively known as Dho Tarap, wards 1–3 of Dolpo Buddha rural municipality. Dho Tarap had 923 people in 205 households at the 2011 census.

Dolpo was historically divided into four valleys: Tsharka ('good growing-place'), Tarap ('auspicious excellent'), Panzang ('abode of monks') and Nangkhong ('innermost place'). Each became a village development committee in 1975.

In Dolpo, farming reaches about 3,800–4,180 m, and the people combine fields with herding on pastures at 4,000–5,000 m in a way of life called samadrok, roughly 'farming nomads'.

Upper Mustang, which includes Ghami, was closed to outsiders until 1992, which is one reason its villages kept their Tibetan language, Sakya monasteries and traditional farming largely intact into the 21st century.

Upper Mustang has a cool semi-arid climate with only about 250–400 mm of rain a year, because it lies in the rain shadow of the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri ranges. Every field in Ghami depends on irrigation channels.

Mustang has some 10,000 man-made caves cut into its valley walls, like those in the cliffs at Dhakmar near Ghami. The oldest were used as burial chambers as early as about 1,000 BC; later they became homes and meditation cells.

Flights to Jomsom are scheduled for the early morning because heating of the dry Mustang landscape pulls strong southerly winds up the Kali Gandaki gorge. After late morning the wind often makes landings unsafe, so a delayed flight can mean a full day's wait.

The Mustang Eco Museum, about 15 minutes' walk from Jomsom airport, displays beads, bones and pendants recovered from the Mustang sky caves, along with exhibits on local culture and medicinal plants.

Shaligrams are ammonite fossils from the Tethys Sea, the ocean that lay between India and Asia before the Himalaya rose. Finding sea fossils at 2,700 m is a direct sign of how far these rocks have been lifted.

Kagbeni marks the southern limit of the Upper Mustang restricted area. North of the checkpoint at the edge of the village, foreigners need a special restricted area permit on top of the usual ACAP permit and must travel with a licensed guide.

Kagbeni had just 555 residents at the 2011 census, yet it is regarded as one of the oldest villages in the Nepal Himalaya, and it lies between two rivers held sacred by Hindus.

The Jhong Khola, which joins the Kali Gandaki at Kagbeni, flows down from the Muktinath valley at the foot of the Thorong La, so Kagbeni sits where the Annapurna Circuit trail meets the old road to Lo.

Lo Manthang's royal palace is a nine-cornered, five-storey building put up around 1400. The last king of Lo, Jigme Dorje Palbar Bista, was born in it in 1930 and was the 25th in a direct line of rulers dating back to 1380.

In 2007 a series of at least twelve caves decorated with Buddhist paintings, dating to around the 13th century and showing Newar influence, were found in cliffs near Lo Manthang at about 4,300 m.

Lo Manthang is about 20 km by road from the Korala border crossing into Tibet. The Kaligandaki Corridor road now links the city with Pokhara in around a day of driving, though much of it was still unpaved in 2025.

Lubra is often described as the only village in Mustang that follows Bon entirely, and its around 16 families make up one of the oldest Bon settlements in Nepal, founded according to local tradition about 20 generations ago.

Followers of Bon walk around chortens, prayer walls and monasteries counter-clockwise and turn prayer wheels to the left, the reverse of Tibetan Buddhists. Bon swastikas, symbols of permanence, also face the opposite way.

Flash floods along the Panda Khola have repeatedly damaged Lubra's fields and irrigation channels in recent years, making the village one of the clearest local examples of how changing weather affects small Himalayan communities.

Marpha's main lane has a covered drainage system running beneath the stone paving, which carries water through the village. It is one reason the village has long been praised as a model of traditional planning in the Kali Gandaki valley.

Chhairo, on the opposite bank of the Kali Gandaki just south of Marpha, has the first Nyingma monastery established in Mustang district, and a Tibetan refugee settlement whose residents run many of the craft stalls in Marpha.

The Japanese monk Ekai Kawaguchi lived in Marpha in 1899–1900 while preparing to cross secretly into Tibet, after studying Buddhism in Tsarang in Upper Mustang.

Muktinath is one of the 108 Divya Desam, the Vishnu temples praised in the Tamil Vaishnava canon, and one of eight Svayam Vyakta Kshetras, where Vishnu is believed to have appeared on his own. That is why South Indian pilgrims travel thousands of kilometres to reach it.

The Buddhist nuns who tend the Muktinath shrine are regarded locally as dakinis, and are said to descend from women taught by Padmasambhava during his stay. They also look after the statue of him kept in the Mharme Lhakhang.

Muktinath is also a Shakta site, counted among the Shakti pithas associated with the goddess Sati. Its goddess is addressed as Gandaki Chandi, and its Bhairav as Chakrapani.

Phoksundo Lake was designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance in September 2007. Its maximum depth was measured at 145 m in a 2004 survey and 136.2 m in a 2019 survey by Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology.

A 2019–2022 study by Nepal's Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, supported by WWF, found 90 snow leopards in Shey Phoksundo National Park, a density of 2.21 per 100 km².

Peter Matthiessen never saw a snow leopard on the 1973 journey through Dolpo that he described in The Snow Leopard. The book won the US National Book Award in 1979 and 1980, in two categories.

The Japanese monk Ekai Kawaguchi studied Buddhism and Tibetan rhetoric in Tsarang in 1899 under a Mongolian Buddhist scholar, before retreating to Marpha and secretly crossing into Tibet via a pass in the Dhaulagiri Himal.

Kawaguchi was the first recorded Japanese citizen to travel to Nepal or Tibet. He made four journeys to Nepal, in 1899, 1903, 1905 and 1913, and two to Tibet.

Upper Mustang, including Tsarang, receives only about 250–400 mm of precipitation a year, which is why its fields are enclosed by stone walls and fed entirely by irrigation channels from streams fed by snowmelt.

The Kali Gandaki directly between Dhaulagiri and Annapurna I, about 7 km downstream from Tukuche, flows at around 2,520 m, roughly 5,570 m below the summit of Annapurna I. By that measure the gorge is often called one of the deepest in the world.

From the late 19th century until about the late 1920s, Thakali merchant families held the government contract for customs on the Thak Khola salt trade, which made Tukuche the main trading post between Tibet and the Nepal hills.

Tukuche Peak, the 6,920 m mountain rising west of the village, is one of the high summits that pilots must fly beside on the Pokhara–Jomsom route, because the small planes cannot fly over the range.

Langtang National Park, gazetted in 1976, was Nepal's first Himalayan national park and its fourth protected area. In the north and east it adjoins the Qomolangma National Nature Preserve in Tibet.

Prithvi Narayan Shah's Gorkha army attacked Nuwakot on 26 September 1744, a date chosen by his astrologer, and took it within days. The fort became the base for the conquest of the Kathmandu Valley.

The Gosaikunda lake complex, about 1,030 hectares, was designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance on 29 September 2007.

Upper Tsum Valley declared itself a zone of non-violence toward animals in about 1920 under the Shyagya vow, and Lower Tsum's 22 settlements joined in 2012.

The glacier collapse that caused the 26 August 2026 flood was so large that it registered as a seismic event of about magnitude 5.2, first mistaken for an earthquake. No rain had fallen that morning at the Rasuwa headquarters.

Larkya La, 5,106 m, is described as one of the longest passes in the Nepal Himalaya. It lies between Dharamsala and Bimthang and is the highest point of the Manaslu Circuit trek.

The Manaslu Conservation Area, created in 1998 and covering 1,663 square km, is home to 33 mammal species including snow leopard, musk deer and Himalayan tahr, and more than 110 bird species.

Elevations inside the Manaslu Conservation Area range from about 1,400 m in the river gorges to the 8,000 m summit of Manaslu, spanning bioclimatic zones from subtropical forest to permanent snow.

The Rasuwagadhi crossing below Briddim opened to international trade in December 2014, after Nepal and China agreed in 2012 to develop it, and became an alternative to the Kodari crossing.

In Gyirong town across the border, the old Kerung of Nepali traders, live the Daman people, descendants of Nepali Gorkha soldiers from centuries ago, who were granted Chinese citizenship in 2003.

A flood on 8 July 2025, a year before the larger 2026 disaster, destroyed the Miteri Bridge at Rasuwagadhi and washed away around 1 km of the road between Timure and the border.

Shivapuri hill above Chisapani, at 2,732 m, is the highest point on the rim of the Kathmandu Valley, and the national park named after it was gazetted in 2002 as Nepal's ninth national park.

Sundarijal, where the walk to Chisapani begins, has a small dam and hydroelectric station and is also the headquarters of Nepal's Himalayan Rescue Dog squad.

The forests of Shivapuri form an important water catchment, supplying the Kathmandu Valley daily, and the Bagmati, Kathmandu's sacred river, rises in these hills at Baghdwar.

At the 1991 Nepal census Gatlang had a population of about 2,500 people living in some 500 households, a large village for its altitude in Rasuwa.

Gatlang's houses are built of stone and wood, and the timber darkens with years of kitchen smoke and weather, which is why the village is sometimes described as black from a distance.

The Chilime hydropower plant in the valley below Gatlang was among the hydropower projects damaged by the flood of 26 August 2026 on the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli system.

The Gosaikunda lake complex, about 1,030 hectares, was designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance on 29 September 2007, and the lake itself covers 13.8 hectares.

Among the Newar people Gosaikunda is known as Silu, and it inspired the Newar song Silu, about a pilgrimage to the lake, which later inspired a film of the same name.

Gosaikunda is linked in belief with the pond at Kumbheshwar temple in Patan; at Janai Purnima people who cannot make the climb bathe at Kumbheshwar instead.

The Hyolmo language belongs to the Kyirong branch of Tibetic languages, close to Tibetan but not fully mutually intelligible with it. Hyolmo communities trace their roots to the Kyirong region of southern Tibet.

A popular explanation says Helambu comes from Hyolmo words for potato (he) and radish (lahbu), the region's crops. Scholars consider this etymology doubtful and see Helambu as a Nepali rendering of Yolmo.

Helambu is known for its sweet apples and for being a Buddhist pilgrimage area, and its high point on the standard trek is only about 3,650 m, making it one of the lowest multi-day treks from Kathmandu.

Swiss-style cheese-making was introduced to Langtang in the 1950s by Werner Schulthess, and cheese is still produced in the valley today, making it one of Nepal's oldest mountain dairy projects.

Around 2000, with support from the United Nations Development Programme, some Langtang teahouses were fitted with solar panels so trekkers could have hot showers without burning more firewood.

The Tsergo Ri landslide, near the peak trekkers climb from Kyanjin, is one of the largest known mass movements on Earth. It is prehistoric and its debris shapes much of the upper valley.

In 2016 the International Astronomical Union named a 9.8 km wide crater on Mars after the village of Langtang, as a tribute to those killed in the 2015 avalanche.

The Langtangpa are counted as Tamang in Nepal's census, but they speak a Tibetan dialect closely related to the Tibetan of Kyirong in southern Tibet, the old trading partner across the border.

Langtang National Park, gazetted in 1976, was Nepal's first Himalayan national park and its fourth protected area. A buffer zone of 420 square km was added in 1998.

The fifth and sixth floors of Nuwakot's seven-storey palace were used as a prison. Among those held there were the king of Tanahun, Tri Bikram Sen, and Bal Narsingh of Kirtipur.

In 1793 Bahadur Shah installed a copper plate at Nuwakot's Bhairavi temple declaring Nepal's victory in the war with China, stored seized weapons on the temple's second storey, and gave it the copper roof it still has.

Nuwakot was the meeting place, in 1793, of the British envoy Captain William Kirkpatrick and the acting regent Bahadur Shah, one of the first formal contacts between Nepal and the British East India Company.

In 1954 villagers at Sama forced a Japanese Manaslu expedition to retreat, believing earlier climbers had caused avalanches that destroyed the Pungyen Gompa and killed 18 people. A later donation helped rebuild the monastery.

Manaslu, 8,163 m, was first climbed on 9 May 1956 by Toshio Imanishi of Japan and Gyalzen Norbu, a Sherpa, members of a Japanese expedition.

At the 1991 Nepal census Samagaon had 665 residents living in 179 houses, and the entire population was recorded as Buddhist.

The road from Syabrubesi north to the Tibetan border at Rasuwagadhi is about 18 km long and forms the last section of National Highway 42, the Trishuli Corridor, which ends beside the 1855 Rasuwa fort.

Syabru was the scene of a battle in the second campaign of the Sino-Nepalese War, around 24 July 1792, when Qing troops under Fuk'anggan advanced from Tibet toward Nuwakot.

The flood of 26 August 2026 was not caused by rain: no rain was recorded that morning at the Rasuwa district headquarters. Scientists linked it to a rock and ice collapse from a glacier near Langtang Lirung.

Upper Tsum was declared a non-violent area in about 1920, under the Shyagya vow against killing animals, and the 22 settlements of Lower Tsum declared the same commitment at a Shyagya festival in 2012.

Tsum Valley was closed to foreign trekkers until 2008, and it still requires a special restricted area permit because it lies near the Tibetan border.

Traditional practices including polyandry and communal resource sharing still persist in parts of the Tsum Valley, alongside subsistence farming and yak and sheep herding.

Mundhum, the oral scripture of the Limbu, is said to mean the power of great strength in the Limbu language, and is organised into two parts, Thungsap and Peysap.

Kinema, a fermented soybean food also called hongema or hokima, is a traditional food of the Limbu people and is now also made by other Kirat communities of eastern Nepal, Sikkim and Darjeeling.

Te-ongsi Sirijunga, an 18th-century Limbu scholar of Limbuwan and Sikkim, revived and taught the Limbu script, which is widely known as the Sirijanga script after him.

Kanchenjunga's name was explained in the 19th century by the Schlagintweit brothers as meaning the five treasures of the high snow, from Tibetan words.

Bhadrapur's airport in Jhapa, the main air gateway to Ilam's tea country, has served as an airfield since November 1963.

Bhedetar's main settlement began when the Dharan–Dhankuta highway was completed in 1982; before that it was a farming ridge on the porters' trail.

Nepal Television operates a high-power transmitter station at Bhedetar that broadcasts its channels to the surrounding region, which is why a tall mast stands out on the ridge when seen from Dharan below.

Bhedetar lies at about 1,420 m on the border between Sunsari and Dhankuta districts, more than a thousand metres above Dharan just below.

Chainpur has been known for hundreds of years for the karuwa, a water jug with a pipe-like spout and carved exterior, still a classic gift in eastern Nepal.

Chainpur used to be the headquarters of Sankhuwasabha district before the offices moved to Khandbari, which is why the old town has an older, more established bazaar than many hill towns of its size.

Chainpur municipality was formed in May 2014 by merging five former village areas: Chainpur, Siddhakali, Siddhapokhari, Baneshwar and Kharang, with the old bazaar as its centre.

A first group of five American Peace Corps volunteers arrived in Dhankuta bazaar in autumn 1962 to teach in the town's two high schools.

In the 2011 census, about 14.6 percent of Dhankuta municipality's residents spoke Athpare, the language of the Athpahariya Rai, making it the most spoken language after Nepali.

Before the road age, Dhankuta's hill economy relied on selling tangerines and potatoes and on money sent home by Gorkha soldiers serving in the British and Indian armies.

The Kanchenjunga Conservation Area was established in 1997 and covers 2,035 km² of Taplejung district. It adjoins Qomolangma National Nature Preserve in Tibet and Khangchendzonga National Park in Sikkim.

On 23 September 2006 a chartered helicopter flying between Phungling and Ghunsa crashed, killing all 24 people aboard, including a WWF team, during the creation of the locally managed Kanchenjunga Conservation Area.

Ghunsa lies at about 3,475 m in Taplejung and is the main village and checkpoint on the trekking route to Kanchenjunga's northern base camp at Pang Pema.

Hile lies at about 1,948 m on the Koshi Highway, about 13 km north of Dhankuta bazaar, and is administratively Ward No. 1 of Dhankuta municipality.

Tongba, the warm millet drink served in Hile's kitchens, has a Limbu name and is found across the eastern hills of Nepal and in Sikkim and Darjeeling.

The ridge north of Hile toward Basantapur leads to the Tinjure–Milke–Jaljale area, known for its rhododendron forests, which draw visitors from across eastern Nepal in spring.

Ilam bazaar was established in 1818 as the headquarters of the Ilam gauda, an administrative post of the Gorkhali state, more than forty years before tea was planted here.

In 2010 Ilam municipality became the first in Nepal to ban plastic bags from its market, an early local step that other towns later followed. Shopkeepers in the bazaar still mention it with pride.

Mai Pokhari, a small lake and wetland at about 2,100 m north of Ilam bazaar, was designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance in October 2008.

Kanyam is not a separate municipality. It lies within Suryodaya municipality of Ilam district, whose administrative centre is the market town of Fikkal a short drive away.

Nepal's orthodox tea follows four flushes: first flush from about the fourth week of March, second flush from May, a monsoon flush, and an autumn flush in October and November.

The Mechi Highway that passes Kanyam climbs about 74 km from the East–West Highway in Jhapa to Ilam bazaar, linking the tea hills with the Terai.

Makalu Barun National Park was established in 1992 as the eastern extension of Sagarmatha National Park, covering about 1,500 km² with a buffer zone of about 830 km² to the south and south-east.

From the Arun river valley at about 344 m to the summit of Makalu, the park spans an elevation gain of about 8,000 m, enclosing both near-tropical forest and snow peaks.

Makalu was first climbed on 15 May 1955 by Lionel Terray and Jean Couzy of a French expedition led by Jean Franco, with the rest of the team summiting over the following days.

Kanchenjunga was first climbed on 25 May 1955 by Joe Brown and George Band, who stopped just short of the true summit to keep a promise that the top would remain untouched.

In 1979 Doug Scott, Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker made the third ascent of Kanchenjunga, the first without supplemental oxygen, by establishing a new route on the North Ridge.

In 1899 Douglas Freshfield and the Italian photographer Vittorio Sella examined Kanchenjunga's great western face rising from the Kangchenjunga Glacier, one of the earliest close studies of the mountain's Nepal side.

The temple is known by two names: Pathibhara Devi to Hindu pilgrims and Mukkumlung to the Limbu people, for whom the hill is a sacred place in their own tradition.

Taplejung Airport at Suketar, the nearest airstrip to Pathibhara, opened in October 1976 and restarted scheduled service in 2016 after its runway was blacktopped. Services remain irregular.

Phungling, the bazaar town below Pathibhara and the headquarters of Taplejung district, became a municipality in May 2014 by merging the former village areas of Phungling and Dokhu.

Sandakphu, at 3,636 m, is the highest point of the Singalila ridge and also the highest point of the Indian state of West Bengal, while sitting on the border with Nepal.

Sandakpur rural municipality in Ilam district was created on 10 March 2017 in Nepal's restructuring of local government, and it includes the Mai Pokhari Ramsar wetland as well as the Sandakpur peak area.

The Singalila ridge, 3,000–3,500 m high south of Kanchenjunga, is the line that separates Sikkim in India from Nepal, which is why the border runs along the trail at Sandakpur.

Tumlingtar Airport sits at about 518 m on the flat terrace between the Arun and Sabha rivers, and was first conceived in Nepal's Fourth Plan to serve inaccessible areas of the eastern hills.

The earlier Arun III hydropower plan was the first case submitted to the World Bank's Inspection Panel in 1994, and the Bank withdrew from the project in 1995.

The Arun river rises in Tibet and cuts south through the main Himalayan range before joining the Sapta Koshi, making it one of the rivers older than the mountains it crosses.

Shuklaphanta's grasslands hold the largest known population of barasingha, or swamp deer, in the world: an estimated 1,674 animals in 2007. The main grassland, Shukla Phanta itself, covers about 16 sq km and is the largest continuous grassland patch in Nepal.

Rara is the largest lake in Nepal, with a surface of 10.8 sq km and a maximum depth of 167 m. Rara National Park, at 106 sq km, is the smallest national park in the country, and the lake has its own endemic fish, the Rara snowtrout.

In 1312 the Khasa king Ripu Malla, ruling from Sinja in Jumla, visited Lumbini and left a two-script inscription on the Ashokan pillar at Nigali Sagar, with a Buddhist mantra in Tibetan script above a Sanskrit blessing in Devanagari.

The Sinja valley, capital of the Khasa kingdom from the 12th to the 14th century, was added to UNESCO's World Heritage Tentative List in January 2008, in the cultural category.

A wild yak, thought to have vanished from Nepal for about five decades, was reported in the Limi valley of upper Humla in 2014. Snow leopard, Himalayan wolf, kiang and Tibetan gazelle have also been recorded there.

Badimalika temple is served by two priests, one representing Kalikot district and the other representing Bajura, a reflection of the temple's shared history between the hill kingdoms of the region.

Badimalika Municipality in Bajura, formed in 2017, takes its name from the temple, even though the temple itself lies in neighbouring Triveni Municipality.

Nepal Telecom extended 4G mobile service to the Badimalika area, at about 4,200 m, by installing a tower ahead of the Janai Purnima fair, improving communication and emergency coordination for pilgrims.

Bardia was handed to the British East India Company under the Sugauli Treaty of 1815 and returned to Nepal in 1860. The four districts that came back are still called Naya Muluk, meaning the new country.

Rhinos were translocated to Bardia from Chitwan from 1986, with 58 animals moved by 2000. Poaching then destroyed the Babai valley population almost entirely by 2008, before protection helped numbers recover in the Karnali floodplain.

In 1985 two large wild elephant bulls appeared in Bardia for the first time and were named Raja Gaj and Kanchha. Raja Gaj stood about 3.4 m at the shoulder and has been compared to a mammoth for his domed head.

King Prithvi Malla's stone pillar inscription at Dullu is dated Shaka 1279, which is 1357 CE. It names his predecessors and records that the dynasty's founder Nagaraj set up his capital at Semja, today's Sinja.

Dullu was the winter capital of the Khasa Malla kings, and later a small kingdom that kept a semi-independent status until the early 1960s, when it was annexed fully under King Mahendra.

Because of its ever-burning natural gas flames, the Panchakoshi area of Dailekh is also called Jwala Tirtha or Agni Tirtha, the pilgrimage of flame.

Ghodaghodi Tal was designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance in August 2003. The site covers about 2,563 hectares at around 205 m at the foot of the Siwalik hills in Kailali district.

A survey in February 2021 recorded 26 mugger crocodiles across 18 lakes in the Ghodaghodi area. The lakes are also home to the Eurasian otter and the red-crowned roofed turtle.

Ghodaghodi Tal was declared a bird sanctuary in March 2022, adding protection for the waterbirds that winter on the lakes. It also protects the wetland's role as a resting place for migrating ducks and waders.

In the 2021 census about 51 percent of Jumla district's people gave Khas as their first language and about 43 percent Nepali, a sign of how close Jumla stays to the older form of the language.

Every year on Ghatasthapana, the first day of Dashain, devotees replace the lingo at Chandannath temple: a timber pole of more than 52 feet painted brick red and hung with a long cloth banner. People believe misfortune follows if it breaks during the change.

The kingdom of Jumla, founded around 1404, held Mustang from 1760 and resisted the first Gorkhali attacks. It was annexed to the Gorkha state in 1789 during the regency of Bahadur Shah.

Khaptad National Park was established in 1984 on the advice of Khaptad Baba, the hermit who had lived on the plateau since the 1940s. A buffer zone of 216 sq km was declared around it in 2006.

Khaptad Baba was born Shivanath Dogra in Kashmir in 1880 and trained as a doctor, studying in Calcutta and surgery in the UK, before renouncing medicine to become a Hindu ascetic.

Khaptad National Park records 567 plant species, of which 224 are medicinal, along with 287 bird species including the Himalayan monal, or danphe, and the white-rumped vulture.

The Limi valley has just three settlements: Til at about 4,100 m, Halji at 3,700 m and Jang (Dzang) at 3,920 m. Its population was 988 in 1991 and 904 in the 2011 census.

Halji's Rinchenling monastery is believed to have been built by the 11th-century translator Rinchen Zangpo, and it bears strong historical and artistic resemblances to the Tabo monastery in Spiti, India.

A wild yak, thought to have been extinct in Nepal for about five decades, was reported in the Limi valley in 2014. Snow leopard, kiang, Tibetan gazelle and argali have also been recorded there.

Ramaroshan is known locally as barha banda, athara khanda, meaning twelve lakes and eighteen meadows. Jigale, shaped like the letter Y, is the largest lake and Taule the smallest.

Kinimini patan, the largest of Ramaroshan's meadows and possibly the largest in Achham district, has the Kailash stream flowing through it.

Ramaroshan rural municipality was formed in 2017 by merging seven former village development committees: Malatiko, Chafamandu, Shantada, Batulasain, Samroshan, Bhatakatiya and Sutar.

Rara is Nepal's largest lake, with a surface of 10.8 sq km and a maximum depth of 167 m. It is about 5 km long and 3 km wide, and drains into the Mugu Karnali through the Nijar river.

The Rara snowtrout (Schizothorax raraensis) is found only in Rara Lake, as is the Rara Lake frog (Nanorana rarica). Both were described from specimens collected at the lake in 1979.

When Rara National Park was created in 1976, the people of the two lakeshore villages, Rara and Chhapru, were resettled to the Terai. At 106 sq km, Rara remains Nepal's smallest national park.

The barasingha population in Shuklaphanta's grasslands, estimated at 1,674 animals in 2007, is the largest known population of the species in the world. Few people outside Nepal know it is here.

In 2001 Shuklaphanta held Nepal's largest population of the endangered Bengal florican, with 20–28 birds estimated in its grasslands. The park is also the western limit for several resident birds, including the swamp francolin and Jerdon's babbler.

The gharial, a fish-eating crocodile, became extinct in Shuklaphanta in 1993. It was reintroduced to the park's Chaudhar river in March 2024. It had been absent from the park for more than three decades.

Simikot Airport's runway is only 549 m long at an elevation of about 2,818 m, so it can only be used by short take-off and landing aircraft such as the Twin Otter and Dornier.

Humla is Nepal's second-largest district by area at 5,655 sq km, and its Namkha rural municipality, which includes the Limi valley, is the largest rural municipality in Nepal by area.

In July 2025 a Bailey bridge over the Chuwa Khola completed Simikot's connection to Nepal's national road network, after more than two decades of work on the Karnali corridor. Humla had been the last district headquarters without a road link.

The Sinja valley was added to UNESCO's World Heritage Tentative List on 30 January 2008, in the cultural category, as the ancient capital of the Khasa kingdom.

Excavations in Sinja found a large network of underground pipes that formed a water supply system, and a ring of massive monolithic stone columns around the old settlement.

A stone inscription of King Ripu Malla stands at Sahubada in the Sinja valley. The same king left an inscription on the Ashokan pillar at Nigali Sagar near Lumbini in 1312.