Geography and Climate
Nepal is of roughly trapezoidal shape, about 800 kilometers (500 mi) long and 200 kilometers (120 mi) wide, with an area of 147,516 km2 (56,956 sq mi).The land area is 147,181 square kilometers. The altitude decreases from the lofty mountains on the border with China in the north (more than 4,000 meters above sea level) to the south. The central part (1,000 meters to 4,000 meters above sea level) is mountainous, and the southern area near India has lower altitudes (below 1,000 meters) and is mostly dense woodland.
Everest Base Camp, is a base camp on both sides of Mount Everest. The southern base camp is located in Nepal, with an altitude of 5,360 meters (17,586 feet) (28°0′26″N 86°51′34″E), which is the most iconic location of this event. The Khumbu region of the Himalayas (Everest region) is the alternating period between the wind season and the rainy season from early April to the end of May and from early September to the end of October. During this period, there is good and stable weather, which is the best season suitable for outdoor sports such as mountaineering, hiking and cross-country running.
Culture and History
Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China to the north, and India in the south, east, and west, while it is narrowly separated from Bangladesh by the Siliguri Corridor, and from Bhutan by the Indian state of Sikkim. 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. Kathmandu is the nation's capital and the largest city. Nepal is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural state, with Nepali as the official language.
The 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. In the middle of the first millennium BC, Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was born in Lumbini in southern Nepal. Parts of northern Nepal were intertwined with the culture of Tibet. The centrally located Kathmandu Valley is intertwined with the culture of Indo-Aryans, and was the seat of the prosperous Newar confederacy known as Nepal Mandala. The Himalayan branch of the ancient Silk Road was dominated by the valley's traders. The cosmopolitan region developed distinct traditional art and architecture. By the 18th century, the Gorkha Kingdom achieved the unification of Nepal. The Shah dynasty established the Kingdom of Nepal and later formed an alliance with the British Empire, under its Rana dynasty of premiers. The country was never colonised but served as a buffer state between Imperial China and British India. Parliamentary democracy was introduced in 1951 but was twice suspended by Nepalese monarchs, in 1960 and 2005. The Nepalese Civil War in the 1990s and early 2000s resulted in the establishment of a secular republic in 2008, ending the world's last Hindu monarchy.
The 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 (SAARC), of which it is a founding member. Nepal is also a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Bay of Bengal Initiative. The Nepalese Armed Forces are the fifth-largest in South Asia; and are notable for their Gurkha history, particularly during the world wars, and has been a significant contributor to United Nations peacekeeping operations.
