Interesting facts

Nepal is a country of breathtaking beauty and diversity of cultures like no other place on earth. Truly The Only Heaven on Earth”. So "VISITING NEPAL ONCE IS NEVER ENOUGH".

Here are 42 interesting and information about Nepal.

1. The people of Nepal greet each other with their palms placed together. They bow their foreheads and say “Namaste”  which is been followed by India too. Namaste means, “I salute the God in you."

2.Nepal is the country which worships the only living goddesses in the world called Kumaris (which literally translated means virgins); these pre-pubescent girls are selected as children and considered to be earthly manifestations of divine female energy.

3. The last Hindu country in the world, Nepal was declared secular by its parliament in 2006. It still has the world’s highest proportion of Hindus today among its people. Cows are considered sacred and it is illegal to kill cow  in Nepal as it is their national animal of Nepal and is worshipped as God.

4. Nepal’s national flag is the only one in the world that isn’t a rectangle or a square. It has two triangles, the top with a moon and the bottom with a sun. The triangles represent not only the Himalayas but Nepal’s two major religions-Hinduism and Buddhism. Though the current design was made in 1962, the basic design has been used for over 2,000 years in the country.

5. A popular and quickly made food dish is the Momo. They are flour and water dumplings filled with a variety of ingredients: meat, chicken, and/or vegetables (either fried or steamed) that are delicious and served with a dipping sauce.

6. The national dish is Dal-bhat-tarkari,which means dal (lentils), bhat (rice), and a tarkari (vegetable). Many Nepali families eat it daily. A typical meal could be a green salad (cucumber and carrot), rice, mustard greens, potatoes, chicken gravy, ghee, black lentils and mutton curry.

7. Nepal’s ancient history began in the Kathmandu Valley and over the centuries its boundaries grew to include tracts of what today are neighboring countries such as India and China. It prospered as a crossroad resting place for two trade routes. As such, it became a cultural mixing pot.

8. The Sakya royal family’s Prince Siddhartha Gautama was born in the 6th century BC near Lumbini, today considered a sacred sight. He grew to embark on a path of contemplative thought and meditation that led him to enlightenment as the Buddha. Nepal is the birth place of LORD GAUTAM BUDDHA who is the GOD OF PEACE and THE LIGHT OF ASIA.
He was born in KAPILVASTU, Lumbini.  INDIA is spreading the rumor that LORD GAUTAM BUDDHA was born in India which is totally wrong. They are making efforts to prove it too.

9. Before it was Kathmandu, the city was Kantipur, meaning “City of Glory”. In ancient times the Kathmandu Valley was actually a huge lake full of floating lotuses. Geologists have scientifically proven this is true.

10. Kathmandu today is known as the world’s living cultural museum. It was given UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 1979 for consisting of around 130 significant pilgrimage and monument sites.

11. Kathmandu is home to more than half of Nepal’s population.

12. The name of this city comes from the Kaasthamandap temple built in 1596. Located in what was the Basantapur Durbar Square, it is also known as Maru Satal.
13. Kathmandu is chosen as the back drop of many movies and TV series because of its beautiful ancient monuments and temples. It is not unusual to see some celebrity around the city of Kathmandu.

14. Freak Street is a street in Kathmandu famous for the large number of hippies residing here in the 1960s and 1970s. Here you could come to see the freaks doing drugs and smoking cannabis.


15. Nepal experienced a ‘dark age’ of which little is known from the late 600s until 1200. Both Tibet and Kashmir invaded the country in the 700s but its strategic location ensured the kingdom’s survival and growth. The credit for founding Kantipur (what is today’s Kathmandu)goes to King Gunakamadeva in approximately the 10th century.
16. During the 9th century a new lunar calendar, the Bikram Sambhat, was introducedthat is still used today. It is approximately 67 years, eight and a half months ahead of the Gregorian calendar Americans use. On it Nepal’s New Year is in mid-April.

17. Through all its history of border expansion and contraction, Nepal has never been colonized and ruled by foreigners. Therefore, Nepal celebrates no Independence Day.

18. Nepal’s renowned Gurkha soldiers always successfully protected their country. Their motto is, “Better to die than be a coward.” The British were so impressed with their fighting ability during the Indian wars; they have been an integral salaried part of the British Army since 1815.



19. The three major river systems of the Asian continent (the Ganga- Brahmaputra, the Yangtze, and the Indus) all have the Himalayas as their beginning source. That’s because the Himalayas are the world’s third largest depository of snow and ice (after the two polar regions), with around 15,000 glaciers containing about 3,000 cubic miles of water.

20. The most mountainous part of Nepal in the north contains eight of the earth’s ten tallest mountains, including its most famous, Mount Everest. Mount Everest stands above all others at 8,848 meters (5.5 miles) above sea level. It is called Sagarmatha  by the Sherpas.

21. Many explorers and climbers were killed during their attempts to climb to the top of the peak before someone was successful. On May 29, 1953, British explorer Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay were the first to ever reach the summit of Mount Everest and thus permanently entered the history books.

22. The Himalayas are home to the highest lake on earth (Tilicho at 4,800 meters/3 miles) and the deepest lake on earth (Shey Phoksundo). They are also home to eight of the top ten tallest mountains on earth in addition to Mount Everest. The zone around it is the Sagarmantha National Park, established in 1976 as a protected area.

23. Nepal’s variation in altitudes is extreme. It boasts the highest valley in the world (Arun) as well as the deepest gorge (Kaligandaki), with altitudes ranging from a scant 59 meters to Everest’s world topping 8,848 meters. Chitwan is the world’s tallest grassland.

24. With the variation in altitudes comes a variation in climates. Traveling from the south to the north, in a span of only 100 kilometers you will go from a hot tropical conditions to bone chilling arctic-level cold. The good news is that Nepal is definitely a four seasons destination.

25. In Nepal, we can find 5,980 flowering plant species including two percent of the world’s orchids (more than 360 species), six percent of the world’s rhododendron species (and it’s Nepal’s national flower), and 250 species endemic to Nepal (and not found growing anywhere else on earth).This is one of the reasons Nepal is known as the Amazon of Asia.

26. With almost 870 different species of birds, Nepal has more than the continents of North Africa and Europe combined. They are home to eight percent of the bird species of the world.
27.Nepal is also home to over 650 different species of butterflies as well as the world’s largest moth and some of its largest wild honeybees.

28. Nepal’s endangered species include the beautiful snow leopard, the red panda, and the one horned rhino.
29. Nepal has never experienced any ethnic or religious clashes and riots. No blood has ever been spilled in the name of religion in the country. Instead, they are home to over 80 ethnic groups and their people speak 123 different languages.

30.The Elephant polo game was originated in Meghauli, Nepal. Nepal’s Tiger Tops is elephant polo’s headquarters and the site of the World Elephant Polo Championships.

31. Touching anything with your feet is considered offensive in Nepal. Never step over a person or any of another person’s body parts. The left hand must not be used for eating in Nepal. The Nepali also consider the head to be sacred, so don’t touch anyone else’s.

32. Mostly from the mountainous eastern part of Nepal, the Sherpas are an ethnic group frequently employed as porters for mountain expeditions as, due to their upbringing and genetics, they don’t suffer the effects of altitude. Today it has become common to call all porters Sherpas.

33. Half the population of Nepal survives on around one dollar per person per day, as Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world.

34. Nepal excels as an arena for adventure and extreme sport tourism. Choices include paragliding, bungee jumping, high altitude marathons, and mountain biking, white-water rafting, kayaking and, of course, mountaineering.

35. Although Nepal has fresh water rivers and over 6,000 lakes generating hydro-electric power, the demand is so much greater than production that everyone must live without electricity for a large part of every day. The “load shedding” on average currently is 8.28 hour daily. Worse, winter is the season when demand rises to its highest level while supplies fall to their lowest.Nepal is the second richest country for water resources in the world after Brazil.

36. Conservation efforts are not only increasing for the population of endangered animals. They are saving them for increased tourism and business for this developing nation. Of Nepal’s total landmass, more than 19 percent is Protected Area or National Park today. Nepal has saved the Blackbuck, increased the tiger and one horned rhino populations, and brought back the Gharial and wild buffalo populations to viable numbers.


37. Nepal has one of the largest concentrations of Royal Bengal Tigers and the second largest one of one-horned rhinos on earth. West Nepal is home to the largest herd of Swamp deer on earth.

38. One of the world’s best habitats for beautiful endangered Snow Leopards is in Nepal.

39. The 2015 Nepal earthquake occurred on11:56 am local time on April 25th. It had a magnitude of 7.9 and was of violent intensity. Its epicenter was at Barpak, east of Kathmandu, and its hypocenter was at a shallow depth of around eight kilometers (five miles).
40. After the earthquake in Nepal on 25 April 2015, some parts of the city of Kathmandu were vertically lifted by about three feet which caused severe damage to different buildings in the city. Among them was the UNESCO-recognized historic Dharahara Tower which was reduced to rubble, trapping at least 50 people beneath it.

41. Seven UNESCO World Heritages site are located in Nepal..

42. Kathmandu’s motto is ‘Unity in Diversity’.With an ancient history, great bio-diversity, a melding of cultures and proud and friendly people, Nepal is a fascinating country to visit.