Nepal

Nepal is a country in Asia.

It has no sea. India is on three sides of it, and China is to the north. Nepal has huge, snowy mountains. The capital city is Kathmandu.

Nepal is a landlocked country, which means it has no coast. It lies between two giant neighbors: India to the east, south and west, and the Tibet region of China to the north. It is about 800 kilometers long from east to west, but much narrower from north to south.

Mountains cover about three-quarters of Nepal. In the north stand the Himalaya, with Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth. About 29.6 million people lived in Nepal in 2025, and the capital, Kathmandu, sits in a wide valley in the middle hills.

Nepal lies along the southern slopes of the Himalaya, wedged between India on three sides and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China to the north. Britannica gives its extent as roughly 800 km east to west and 90 to 150 miles (about 145 to 240 km) north to south, and notes that roughly 75 percent of the country is covered by mountains.

From south to north the land rises through four belts: the low, fertile Tarai; the Churia foothills and the Inner Tarai basins; the mid-mountain region with the Kathmandu and Pokhara valleys; and the Great Himalaya Range. Nepal's 2021 census counted 29,164,578 people, and the World Bank estimated 29.62 million for 2025. Nepali is the official language, and Kathmandu is the capital.

Kathmandu is the capital city.

It is in a big valley in the hills. Old squares there have palaces and buildings with many roofs. Pokhara is a city beside a lake, with snowy mountains behind it.

Kathmandu, the capital, lies in the Kathmandu Valley, about 1,300 meters above the sea; about 846,000 people lived in the city in 2021. The valley also holds the old cities of Patan and Bhaktapur. Their Durbar squares, the old royal squares, are full of palaces and tiered-roof buildings of brick and carved wood, and UNESCO lists them as a World Heritage Site.

Pokhara lies in another valley to the west, beside Phewa Lake, with the Annapurna mountains to the north. In the south, Lumbini is the place where Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, was born; its ancient ruins are a World Heritage Site too.

UNESCO inscribed the Kathmandu Valley in 1979 as seven monument zones: the Durbar squares of Kathmandu (Hanuman Dhoka), Patan and Bhaktapur, with their palaces, temples and public spaces, and the religious ensembles of Swayambhu, Bauddhanath, Pashupati and Changu Narayan. The tiered temples are mostly fired brick with mud mortar and timber, roofed with small terracotta tiles; their carved windows, doorways and roof struts show what UNESCO calls some of the most highly developed craftsmanship in brick, stone, timber and bronze in the world, made by the Newar people and reaching its height between 1500 and 1800. Britannica notes that in April 2015 a magnitude-7.8 earthquake destroyed or badly damaged many of these historic structures.

Lumbini, in the Tarai plains, was inscribed in 1997. UNESCO dates the Buddha's birth there to 623 BCE, testified by the inscription on a sandstone pillar erected by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in 249 BCE, and lists the remains of monasteries and stupas from the 3rd century BCE to the 15th century CE. Pokhara, 96 miles (about 155 km) west of Kathmandu, sits in a flat basin whose largest remaining lake is Phewa.

In the south, Nepal is flat and warm.

In the middle, there are green hills and valleys. In the north are the tallest mountains on Earth. Up there, it is always icy and snowy.

Nepal climbs like a giant staircase. In the south is the Tarai, a strip of low, flat, fertile land beside India. Then come forested foothills, then a wide band of mountains and valleys, and finally the Great Himalaya Range. Many of the world's highest peaks are here, including Mount Everest, Kanchenjunga, Makalu, Dhaulagiri and Annapurna.

The Kathmandu and Pokhara valleys were once covered by lakes. Rivers and glaciers filled them with material washed down from the mountains around them, leaving flat valley floors. In the Kathmandu Valley, most rain falls from June to September. Above about 4,900 meters, it is always below freezing.

Britannica divides Nepal into four east-west belts: the Tarai, the northern edge of the Gangetic Plain; the Churia Range, rising in near-vertical escarpments above 4,000 ft (about 1,200 m), with the Inner Tarai basins behind it; a mid-mountain region of ranges 8,000 to 14,000 ft (about 2,400 to 4,300 m) high; and the Great Himalaya Range, from 14,000 ft to more than 29,000 ft. That last belt holds Everest, Kanchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Dhaulagiri, Manaslu and Annapurna, all above 26,400 ft (about 8,050 m). The Kathmandu and Pokhara valleys are flat basins, formerly lakes, filled with river and glacial deposits during the Pleistocene.

The Kosi, Narayani (Gandak) and Karnali cut deep transverse gorges southward through the ranges; their watershed lies north of the highest peaks, usually in Tibet. Climate depends on elevation: subtropical monsoon in the Tarai, warm temperate in the middle hills, alpine on the lower Himalayan slopes, and permanent frost above about 16,000 ft (4,900 m). Kathmandu averages 10 °C in January and 26 °C in July, with about 55 inches (1,400 mm) of rain, mostly from June to September, while the Pokhara Valley receives about 100 inches (2,500 mm).

Tigers and rhinos live in Nepal's warm forests.

The rhino has one big horn. High in the mountains live snow leopards and red pandas. Wild goats called tahr live there too.

The warm forests of the Tarai are home to Bengal tigers, leopards, wild oxen called gaurs, a few elephants and many deer, including spotted chital. Chitwan National Park, set up in 1973 as Nepal's first national park, protects one of the last populations of the one-horned rhinoceros, and more than 350 kinds of birds have been recorded there.

High in the mountains live musk deer, wild goats called tahr, and wild sheep, which snow leopards and wolves hunt. Sagarmatha National Park, around Mount Everest, is home to rare animals such as the snow leopard and the red panda.

Britannica describes the Tarai forests as home to tigers, including the endangered Bengal tiger, leopards, gaurs, occasional elephants and buffalo, and deer such as chital, sambar and swamp deer. Forest clearing has left few wild animals in the central zone, while the alpine zone supports musk deer, tahr, goral and wild sheep, preyed on by wolves and snow leopards; pheasants are common, and the mahseer is a large river fish. Natural vegetation follows altitude, from sal forest in the Tarai through pine, oak and rhododendron to fir, birch and alpine grassland.

Chitwan National Park, Nepal's first (1973) and a World Heritage Site since 1984, covers 93,200 hectares of Tarai lowland. UNESCO says it holds the second-largest population of the greater one-horned rhinoceros in the world, is prime habitat for the Bengal tiger, and has recorded over 350 bird species. Sagarmatha National Park, gazetted in 1976 and inscribed in 1979, covers 124,400 hectares around Everest and is home to rare species such as the snow leopard and the red panda; UNESCO notes that snow leopards have recolonized the park.

Almost 30 million people live in Nepal.

Many speak Nepali. Many other languages are spoken too. Farmers grow rice, corn and wheat. The Sherpa people live high in the mountains near Everest.

Nepal is home to many different peoples, with many languages. Nepali is the official language, and in the north and east many people speak languages such as Tamang, Gurung, Magar, Rai, Limbu, Newari and Sherpa. The Newar people of the Kathmandu Valley are known for the fine craftsmanship of its old cities.

Most people in Nepal are Hindu, and some follow Buddhism or other religions. Farming is the work of most people: rice, corn and wheat are the main crops, along with potatoes, sugarcane and millet, and families raise cattle, buffalo, goats and sheep. Near Mount Everest, more than 6,000 Sherpa people live in over 20 villages.

Britannica explains that early migrations of peoples from Tibet and of Indo-Aryan peoples from northern India produced a diverse linguistic, ethnic and religious pattern. Tibeto-Nepalese groups such as the Tamang, Rai, Limbu, Bhutia (including the Sherpa) and Sunwar live mainly in the north and east, the Magar and Gurung in west-central Nepal, and the Newar and Tharu are believed to have settled before those migrations. Nepali, of the Indo-Aryan branch, is the official language; most northern and eastern languages belong to the Tibeto-Burman family. A vast majority of people are Hindu and a small share Buddhist, and Nepal has no official religion.

Agriculture, mainly rice, corn and wheat, engages most of the population, and about one-third of the land is forested. Britannica calls Nepal a young country, with more than three-fifths of the population under 30. UNESCO records more than 6,000 Sherpas in over 20 villages of Sagarmatha National Park, where they have lived for about four centuries; their customs, including restrictions on hunting, have helped conserve the park.