65 Facts About Nepal

Nepal has a diverse geography, including fertile plains, subalpine forested hills, and eight of the world's ten tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth.

Name "Nepal" is first recorded in texts from the Vedic period of the Indian subcontinent, the era in ancient Nepal when Hinduism was founded, the predominant religion of the country.

Constitution of Nepal, adopted in 2015, affirms the country as a secular federal parliamentary republic divided into seven provinces.

Nepal was admitted to the United Nations in 1955, and friendship treaties were signed with India in 1950 and China in 1960.

Nepal hosts the permanent secretariat of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, of which it is a founding member.

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Nepal is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Bay of Bengal Initiative.

Nepal appears in ancient Indian literary texts dated as far back as the fourth century BC.

Nepal came to be established as a land of spirituality and refuge in the intervening centuries, played an important role in transmitting Buddhism to East Asia via Tibet, and helped preserve Hindu and Buddhist manuscripts.

In south-eastern Nepal, Simraungarh annexed Mithila around 1100 AD, and the unified Tirhut stood as a powerful kingdom for more than 200 years, even ruling over Kathmandu for a time.

Apart from one destructive sacking of Kathmandu in the early 13th century, Nepal remains largely untouched by the Muslim invasion of India that began in the 11th century.

Nepal embarked on his mission by securing the neutrality of the bordering mountain kingdoms.

In 1923, the United Kingdom and Nepal formally signed an agreement of friendship that superseded the Sugauli Treaty of 1816.

Maoist Party joined mainstream politics following the success of the peaceful democratic revolution of 2006; Nepal became a secular state, and on 28 May 2008, it was declared a federal republic, ending its time-honoured status as the world's only Hindu kingdom.

Nepal is divided into three principal physiographic belts known as Himal–Pahad–Terai.

Saptakoshi, in particular, carries a huge amount of silt out of Nepal but sees extreme drop in Gradient in Bihar, causing severe floods and course changes, and is, therefore, known as the sorrow of Bihar.

Nepal has five climatic zones, broadly corresponding to the altitudes.

Nepal contains a disproportionately large diversity of plants and animals, relative to its size.

The Eastern half of Nepal is richer in biodiversity as it receives more rain, compared to western parts, where arctic desert-type conditions are more common at higher elevations.

Nepal contains 107 IUCN-designated threatened species, 88 of them animal species, 18 plant species and one species of "fungi or protist" group.

Nepal has ten national parks, three wildlife reserves, one hunting reserve, three Conservation Areas and eleven buffer zones, covering a total area of 28, 959.

Constitution of Nepal is the supreme law of the land, and any other laws contradicting it are automatically invalid to the extent of the contradiction.

Nepal has made progress in LGBT rights and gender equality.

Nepal was ranked 76 out of 163 countries in the Global Peace Index in 2019.

Nepal is a member of SAARC, UN, WTO, BIMSTEC and ACD, among others.

Nepal is one of the major contributors to the UN peacekeeping missions, having contributed more than 119, 000 personnel to 42 missions since 1958.

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Nepal pursues a policy of "balanced relations" with the two giant immediate neighbours, India and China; the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship with India provides for a much closer relationship.

Nepal established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China on 1 August 1955, and signed the Treaty of Peace and Friendship in 1960; relations since have been based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.

China is viewed favourably in Nepal owing to the absence of any border disputes or serious interference in internal politics, coupled with its assistance in infrastructure development and aid during emergencies; favourability has increased since China helped Nepal during the 2015 economic blockade imposed by India.

Nepal emphasises greater cooperation in South Asia and actively pushed for the establishment of SAARC, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, the permanent secretariat of which, is hosted in Kathmandu.

Nepal was one of the first countries to recognise an independent Bangladesh, and the two countries seek to enhance greater cooperation, on trade and water management; seaports in Bangladesh, being closer, are seen as viable alternatives to India's monopoly on Nepal's third-country trade.

Nepal was the first South Asian country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, and the countries enjoy a strong relationship; it recognises the rights of the Palestinians, having voted in favour of its recognition at the UN and against the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Countries that Nepal maintains a close relationship with, include the most generous donors and development partners—the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Japan and Norway, among others.

Directorate of Military Intelligence under Nepal Army serves as the military intelligence agency; National Investigation Department tasked with national and international intelligence gathering, is independent.

Nepal Army is primarily used for routine security of critical assets, an anti-poaching patrol of national parks, counterinsurgency, and search and rescue during natural disasters; it undertakes major construction projects.

Nepal has made improvement in sectors like nutrition, child mortality, electricity, improved flooring and assets.

Tourism is one of the largest and fastest-growing industries in Nepal, employing more than a million people and contributing 7.

Nepal, officially opened to westerners in 1951, became a popular destination at the end of the hippie trail, during the 1960s and 1970s.

Nepal remains isolated from the world's major land, air and sea transport routes, although, within the country, aviation is in a better state, with 47 airports, 11 of them with paved runways; flights are frequent and support a sizeable traffic.

Nepal depends almost entirely on assistance from countries like China, India and Japan, for building, maintenance and expansion of the road network.

The national carrier, Nepal Airlines, is in poor shape due to mismanagement and corruption, and has been blacklisted by the EU.

Nepal is a multicultural and multiethnic country, home to 125 distinct ethnic groups, speaking 123 different mother tongues and following a number of indigenous and folk religions in addition to Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity.

Nepal is one of the ten least urbanised, and the ten fastest urbanizing countries in the world.

Nepal is home to at least four indigenous sign languages.

Nepal is a secular country, as declared by the Constitution of Nepal 2012, where secularism 'means religious, cultural freedom, along with the protection of religion, culture handed down from time immemorial ()'.

Nepal was officially a Hindu Kingdom until recently, and Shiva was considered the guardian deity of the country.

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Nepal has the second-largest number of Hindus in the world after India.

Nepal was ranked 111st in the Global Innovation Index in 2021, down from 109th in 2019.

Nepal has made great progress in maternal and child health.

Nepal has reduced maternal mortality rate to 229, from 901 in 1990; infant mortality is down to 32.

Nepal has a long tradition of accepting immigrants and refugees.

Nepal declared untouchability to be illegal in 1963 and has since enacted other anti-discriminatory laws and social welfare initiatives.

At the workplace and educational institutions in urban Nepal, caste-related identification has pretty much lost its importance.

Emblem of Nepal depicts the snowy Himalayas, the forested hills, and the fertile Terai, supported by a wreath of rhododendrons, with the national flag at the crest and in the foreground, a plain white map of Nepal below it, and a man's and woman's right hands joined to signify gender equality.

Nepal's flag is the only national flag in the world that is not rectangular in shape.

Prithvi Narayan Shah, the founder of modern Nepal, is held in high regard and considered "Father of the Nation" by many.

Oldest known examples of architecture in Nepal are stupas of early Buddhist constructions in and around Kapilvastu in south-western Nepal, and those constructed by Ashoka in the Kathmandu Valley c BC.

The characteristic architecture associated exclusively with Nepal was developed and refined by Newa artisans of the Kathmandu Valley starting no later than the Lichchhavi period.

Nepal's literature was closely intertwined with that of the rest of South Asia until its unification into a modern kingdom.

Nepal Academy is the foremost institution for the promotion of arts and culture in Nepal, established in 1957.

Newar cuisine, one of the richest and most influential in Nepal, is more elaborate and diverse than most, as Newar culture developed in the highly fertile and prosperous Kathmandu valley.

Bagh-Chal, an ancient board game that's thought to have originated in Nepal, can be played on chalk-drawn boards, with pebbles, and is still popular today.

Nepal is competitive in football in the South Asia region but has never won the SAFF championships, the regional tournament.

Nepal has had success in cricket and holds the elite ODI status, consistently ranking in the Top 20 in the ICC ODI and T20I rankings.

Nepal has had some success in athletics and martial arts, having won many medals at the South Asian Games and some at the Asian games.

Since the formation of the national team, Nepal has played its home matches of cricket at Tribhuvan University International Cricket Ground.

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