Nepal

By 55,000 years ago, the first modern humans had arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa. The earliest known modern human remains in South Asia date to about 30,000 years ago. The oldest discovered archaeological evidence of human settlements in Nepal dates to around the same time.

After 6500 BC, evidence for the domestication of food crops and animals, construction of permanent structures, and storage of agricultural surplus appeared in Mehrgarh and other sites in what is now Balochistan. These gradually developed into the Indus Valley Civilisation, the first urban culture in South Asia. Prehistoric sites of palaeolithic, mesolithic and neolithic origins have been discovered in the Siwalik hills of Dang district. The earliest inhabitants of modern Nepal and adjoining areas are believed to be people from the Indus Valley Civilisation. It is possible that the Dravidian people whose history predates the onset of the Bronze Age in the Indian subcontinent (around 6300 BC) inhabited the area before the arrival of other ethnic groups like the Tibeto-Burmans and Indo-Aryans. By 4000 BC, the Tibeto-Burmese people had reached Nepal either directly across the Himalayas from Tibet or via Myanmar and north-east India or both. Stella Kramrisch (1964) mentions a substratum of pre-Dravidians and Dravidians, who were in Nepal even before the Newars, who formed the majority of the ancient inhabitants of the valley of Kathmandu.

Around 600 BC, small kingdoms and confederations of clans arose in the southern regions of Nepal and northern India. From one of these, the Shakya polity, arose a prince who later renounced his status to lead an ascetic life, and came to be known as Gautama Buddha (traditionally dated 563–483 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.

By 250 BC, the southern regions had come under the influence of the Maurya Empire. Mauryan emperor Ashoka made a pilgrimage to Lumbini, the Buddha's birthplace according to Buddhist traditions, and erected a pillar, the inscriptions on which mark the starting point for properly recorded history of Nepal. Ashoka also visited the Kathmandu valley and built monuments commemorating Gautama Buddha's visit there. …

Nepal is of roughly trapezoidal shape, about 800 kilometres (500 mi) long and 200 kilometres (120 mi) wide, with an area of 147,516 km (56,956 mi). It lies between latitudes 26° and 31°N, and longitudes 80° and 89°E. Nepal's defining geological processes began 75 million years ago when the Indian plate, then part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana, began a north-eastward drift caused by seafloor spreading to its south-west, and later, south and south-east. Simultaneously, the vast Tethyn oceanic crust, to its northeast, began to subduct under the Eurasian Plate. These dual processes, driven by convection in the Earth's mantle, both created the Indian Ocean and caused the Indian continental crust eventually to under-thrust Eurasia and to uplift the Himalayas.

The rising barriers blocked the paths of rivers creating large lakes, which only broke through as late as 100,000 years ago, creating fertile valleys in the middle hills like the Kathmandu Valley. In the western region, rivers which were too strong to be hampered, cut some of the world's deepest gorges. Immediately south of the emerging Himalayas, plate movement created a vast trough that rapidly filled with river-borne sediment and now constitutes the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Nepal lies almost completely within this collision zone, occupying the central sector of the Himalayan arc, nearly one-third of the 2,400 km (1,500 mi)-long Himalayas, with a small strip of southernmost Nepal stretching into the Indo-Gangetic plain and two districts in the northwest stretching up to the Tibetan plateau.

Nepal is divided into three principal physiographic belts known as Himal–Pahad–Terai. Himal is the mountain region containing snow and situated in the Great Himalayan Range; it makes up the northern part of Nepal. It contains the highest elevations in the world including 8,848.86 metres (29,032 ft) height Mount Everest (Sagarmāthā in Nepali) on the border with China. Over 340 people have died on Mount Everest, and it is estimated that roughly 200 bodies remain on the mountain. Some of these well-preserved bodies have become recognizable landmarks along established climbing routes. Seven other of the world's "eight-thousanders" are in Nepal or on its border with China: Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Kangchenjunga, Dhaulagiri, Annapurna and Manaslu. Pahad is the mountain region that does not generally contain snow. …

Nepal is a parliamentary republic with a multi-party system. Nepal has been referred as the 'Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal' since 2015. Nepal has six political parties represented in the House of Representatives: Rastriya Swatantra Party, Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist), Nepali Communist Party, Shram Sanskriti Party, and Rastriya Prajatantra Party. Additionally, the Janata Samajbadi Party and the Rastriya Janamorcha are represented in the National Assembly. Of the two traditional major parties that both officially espouse democratic socialism, CPN (UML) is considered leftist while Nepali Congress is considered centrist.

In the 1930s, a vibrant underground political movement arose in the capital, birthing Nepal Praja Parishad in 1936, which was dissolved seven years later, following the execution of the four great martyrs. Around the same time, Nepalis involved in the Indian independence movement started organising into political parties, leading to the birth of Nepali Congress and Communist Party of Nepal. As communism was trying to find its footing, the Nepali Congress was successful in overthrowing the Rana regime in 1951 and enjoyed the overwhelming support of the electorate. In the partyless Panchayat system initiated in 1962 by King Mahendra, monarchy loyalists took turns leading the government; political leaders remained underground, exiled or in prison. A communist insurgency was crushed in its cradle in the 1970s, which led to the eventual coalescence of hitherto scattered communist factions under the United Left Front.

After the joint civil resistance launched by the United Left Front and Nepali Congress overthrew the Panchayat in 1990, the Front became CPN (UML), accepted multi-party democracy, and in the brief period it was in government, introduced welfare programmes that remain popular. After the Maoist Party joined mainstream politics, in the aftermath of the peaceful revolution of 2006, it also accepted multi-party democracy as its official line. …

Nepal is one of the least developed countries, which ranks 165th in the world in nominal GDP per capita and 162nd in GDP per capita at PPP. Nepal's gross domestic product (GDP) for 2019 was $34.186 billion. Nepal has consistently been ranked as one of the poorest countries in the world. Nepal has been a member of WTO since 23 April 2004.

The 16.8-million-worker Nepali labour force is the 37th largest in the world. The primary sector makes up 27.59% of GDP, the secondary sector 14.6%, and the tertiary sector 57.81%. Nepal's foreign exchange remittances of US$8.1 billion in 2018, the 19th largest in the world and constituting 28.0% of GDP, were contributed to its economy by hundreds of thousands of workers primarily in Malaysia and the Middle East, almost all of them unskilled labourers. Major agricultural products include cereals (barley, maize, millet, paddy and wheat), oilseed, potato, pulses, sugarcane, jute, tobacco, milk and water buffalo meat. Major industries include tourism, carpets, textiles, cigarettes, cement, brick, as well as small rice, jute, sugar and oilseed mills. Nepal's international trade greatly expanded in 1951 with the establishment of democracy; liberalisation began in 1985 and picked up pace after 1990. By the fiscal year 2016/17, Nepal's foreign trade amounted Rs 1.06 trillion, a twenty-three folds increase from Rs 45.6 billion in 1990/91. More than 60% of Nepal's trade is with India. Major exports include readymade garment, carpet, pulses, handicrafts, leather, medicinal herbs, and paper products, which account for 90% of the total. Major imports include various finished and semi-finished goods, raw materials, machinery and equipment, chemical fertilisers, electrical and electronic devices, petroleum products, gold, and readymade garments. Inflation was at 4.5% in 2019. Foreign exchange reserves were at US$9.5 billion in July 2019, equivalent to 7.8 months of imports.

Nepal has made significant progress in poverty reduction bringing the population below the international poverty line (US$1.90 per person per day) from 15% in 2010 to just 9.3% in 2018, although vulnerability remains extremely high, with almost 32% of the population living on between US$1.90 and US$3.20 per person per day. Nepal has made improvement in sectors like nutrition, child mortality, electricity, improved flooring and assets. …

The citizens of Nepal are known as Nepali or Nepalese. The Nepali are descendants of four major migrations from India, Tibet and North Burma, Central Asia via Hindu Kush, and the Chinese province of Yunnan via Assam. Among the earliest inhabitants were the Kirat of the eastern region, Newars of the Kathmandu Valley, aboriginal Tharus of the Terai plains and the Khas Pahari people of the far-western hills. Despite the migration of a significant section of the population to the Terai in recent years, the majority of Nepalese still live in the central highlands, and the northern mountains are sparsely populated.

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. According to the 2021 census, Nepal's population was 29.5 million, an increase from nine million in 1950. The sex ratio in Nepal stood at 95.59 males per 100 females, reflecting an increase of 1.43 since 2011. The country's population density reached 198 persons per square kilometer, which is an increase of 18 persons per sq. km. compared to the previous decade. Meanwhile, the annual population growth rate slowed down to 0.92%, marking a decrease of 0.43% since 2011.

Nepal is one of the ten least urbanised, and the ten fastest urbanising countries in the world. As of 2014, an estimated 18.3% of the population lived in urban areas. Urbanisation rate is high in the Terai and Doon valleys of the inner Terai and valleys of the middle hills, but low in the high Himalayas. Similarly, the rate is higher in central and eastern Nepal compared to further west. The capital, Kathmandu, nicknamed the "City of temples", is the largest city in the country and the cultural and economic heart. Other large cities in Nepal include Pokhara, Biratnagar, Lalitpur, Bharatpur, Birgunj, Dharan, Hetauda and Nepalgunj. Congestion, pollution and drinking water shortage are some of the major problems facing the rapidly growing cities, most prominently the Kathmandu Valley.

Nepal's diverse linguistic heritage stems from three major language groups: Indo-Aryan, Sino-Tibetan and various indigenous language isolates. …