Nepal: Regions, Cities & Travel Guide

What is Nepal known for?

Eight of the world's ten highest peaks rise along its northern edge, including Everest, Kangchenjunga, and the ring of ice that forms the Annapurna range above Pokhara. The old cities carry equal weight, from the temple squares of Kathmandu and Bhaktapur to Lumbini, where the Buddha was born on the southern plain. Trekkers come for the trails; pilgrims come for the shrines.

Both find a country of astonishing vertical range.

Where is Nepal?

Nepal is landlocked, wedged between the Tibet Autonomous Region of China to the north and India along the south, east, and west. Its map reads as three long belts stacked from the plains to the sky. The land falls hard.

The northern belt is the Himalayas, where eight of the world's ten highest peaks stand, among them Everest on the Tibetan border and Kangchenjunga in the far east. South of that ice wall lies the hill country, a folded middle band of ridges and river valleys that holds most of the population and the two largest cities. Kathmandu sits in a broad bowl in these hills, on the Bagmati River, while Pokhara rests west of it beneath the Annapurna massif.

The southernmost belt is the Terai, a strip of flat, fertile lowland along the Indian frontier that carries the country's farms and its warmest, most crowded districts. Four great river systems drain the whole slope. The Koshi, the Gandaki, the Karnali, and the Mahakali all gather Himalayan meltwater and run south toward the Ganges plain.

From the plain to the highest point on earth, the rise is stupendous.

What is the history of Nepal?

Before there was a Nepal, there were the three rival Malla kingdoms of the Kathmandu Valley, ruling from Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, and Lalitpur. Their craftsmen built the pagoda temples and carved courtyards that still fill those cities. The country was assembled from outside.

Prithvi Narayan Shah, the king of the small hill state of Gorkha, conquered the valley and proclaimed a unified kingdom in 1768, founding the Shah dynasty that would rule for the next two centuries. That kingdom outlasted the British Empire that surrounded it, keeping its independence where its neighbours lost theirs. Power did not always sit with the crown.

For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the hereditary Rana prime ministers ran the country while the Shah kings reigned in name. The twentieth century swept the Ranas from power and, in time, unseated the monarchy itself. A decade-long Maoist insurgency and mass protests forced the end of royal rule, and in 2008 the elected constituent assembly abolished the throne and declared Nepal a federal republic.

Two and a half centuries of kings had closed. The country the Shahs stitched together, though, endured.

What is Nepal like?

Nepal is Hindu and Buddhist at once, and the two faiths share its shrines rather than dividing them. Pilgrims circle the great white dome of Boudhanath and file through the Shaivite riverside temple of Pashupatinath, both in Kathmandu, often within the same day. Faith sets the calendar.

The autumn brings Dashain, the longest festival of the year, when families across the country return home, and Tihar follows soon after with rows of oil lamps and marigold garlands. The Kathmandu Valley is the heartland of the Newar people, whose brick-and-timber architecture, feast cooking, and craft guilds shaped the look of the old cities. Beyond the valley the country is a mosaic of peoples: Sherpas and other groups in the high mountains, Gurungs and Magars in the hills, Tharu communities across the Terai.

Nepali is the shared official language, but dozens of others are spoken at home. Food ties it together. The everyday meal is dal bhat, lentils and rice with vegetable and pickle, eaten twice a day, while steamed momo dumplings turn up at every roadside stall.

Lumbini, on the southern plain, is revered worldwide as the birthplace of the Buddha. One small country holds many worlds.

What is the climate of Nepal?

Nepal's weather is stacked by height as much as by season. The lowland Terai stays hot and humid, the middle hills around Kathmandu and Pokhara run mild, and the high Himalayas are cold and snowbound through the year. One monsoon governs the calendar.

From June into September it drenches the country and hides the peaks behind cloud, so most trekkers wait for the clear, dry skies of October and November, or the spring window of March and April. Winter turns the mountains bitter while the plains stay warm.

How do you get to Nepal?

Nearly all air travellers land at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, the country's one busy international gateway and the hub for domestic flights on to Pokhara and the mountain airstrips. The land route matters too. Nepal shares an open border with India, and travellers cross by road at points like Sunauli and Birgunj, no flight needed.

Overland from the north is far harder, since the Tibetan frontier runs along the high Himalayas. Book the short domestic hops early. Weather grounds them often.