Kathmandu, Nepal

Kathmandu is the capital of Nepal, a poverty-stricken, largely agrarian country whose residents hold fast to ancient Hindu religious beliefs and traditions. As the only metropolitan city in the nation, Kathmandu has the most educational and employment opportunities, the most financial institutions, and the best infrastructure. However, poor urban planning has led to severe environmental degradation. Tourism is Kathmandu’s main industry; tourists are attracted to Kathmandu’s multitude of historic religious sites and proximity to the Himalayas.

Landscape

With an area of 50.67 square kilometers (19.56 square miles), Kathmandu is the largest city in Nepal. It is situated at an elevation of approximately 1,360 meters (4,462 feet) in Kathmandu Valley, a basin in the mid-hill region of Nepal that was once a lake. To the north is the Himalaya mountain range and to the south is the Mahabharat mountain range.

Air quality is extremely poor, as valley topography coupled with winter temperature inversions prevent wind from dispersing the large amounts of automobile and factory emissions that accumulate in the atmosphere. The number of days with high visibility between November and February has dropped considerably since the 1970s; in 2014, the Environmental Performance Index ranked Nepal as the country with the second-worst air pollution in the world, and in Kathmandu, the level of small particulate matter far exceeds the threshold set by the World Health Organization.

Three heavily polluted rivers and their tributaries run through the city: the Bishnumati on the west side, the Bagmati on the south side, and the Dhobi Khola on the east side. The Bagmati meets the Bishnumati at a juncture in the southwest and converges with the Dhobi Khola at a juncture in the southeast.

Kathmandu, whose official title is “Kathmandu Metropolitan City,” is the only metropolitan city in Nepal. It contains five sectors and thirty-five wards and is part of the Kathmandu District, a region of 395 square kilometers (152.5 square miles) that includes the city and surrounding villages. On the west side of Kathmandu is the old quarter, with its historic buildings; on the east side, separated from the old quarter by the Tundikhel parade grounds, are the city’s modern developments.

On April 25, 2015, the Nepal earthquake of 2015, also known as the Gorkha earthquake, struck near Kathmandu. The 7.8-magnitude quake killed about nine thousand people, injured about 16,800 more, and displaced some 2.8 million people. In Kathmandu and the surrounding area, more than 600,000 buildings, including the Taleju Temple and the Dharahara Tower, were damaged or destroyed.

People

Kathmandu is the most populous city in Nepal, with an estimated population of 1.521 million as of 2022. People relocate to Kathmandu to find better jobs, to receive better education and medical care, and, from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, to escape the Maoist rebellion that killed thousands in rural Nepal. Such large population growth has resulted in expansion and increased density in the city. The explosive growth increased the number of squatter settlements in Kathmandu from seventeen in 1985 to forty in 2008.

In 2022, the US Central Intelligence Agency reported that as of 2011, about 81.3 percent of the Nepalese population were Hindu, 9 percent were Buddhist, 4.4 percent were Muslim, 3.1 percent practiced Kirant (or Kirat) Mundhum, 1.4 percent were Christian, and the remainder either practiced other religions or did not specify. Nowhere is the influence of Hinduism more apparent in Nepal than Kathmandu. The city is home to hundreds of Hindu temples, shrines, and public artwork. Religious tolerance permits Hindus and Buddhists to pray at the same temples, celebrate the same festivals, and even worship the same deities.

There are a variety of Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan ethnic groups in Kathmandu. These include the Newars, Limbu, Rai, Magars, Tharus, Sherpas, Tamangs, and Gurungs, as well as the Bahuns and Chhetris, who claim the highest castes (a type of social class division) in the Hindu caste system. Of the numerous languages and dialects in use, Nepali, the official language of Nepal, is most commonly spoken. Literacy rates are indicative of societal gender inequality; as of 2023, about 76.3 percent of Nepal's population was literate. Among them, 83.6 percent of men were literate while 69.4 percent of women were literate. In 2023, Nepal's government set a goal for the fourth time of achieving 100 percent literacy, this time by the end of 2024.

Economy

No accurate measurement of poverty levels exists in Kathmandu, but since Nepal is one of the poorest nations in the world, it can be inferred that poverty levels in Kathmandu are high. However, Kathmandu is Nepal’s commercial and financial center, providing the population with the most job opportunities and the highest per capita income in the country. It is also home to Nepal’s most educated professional workforce. As a result, poverty levels are probably lower in Kathmandu than elsewhere in the country.

Tourism is the backbone of Kathmandu’s economy. The tourist and services industries employ a sizable portion of the workforce and generate the most foreign income of any industry. The economy is so dependent on tourism that a decline in tourists could result in a citywide financial crisis.

Kathmandu’s manufacturing sector is dominated by small manufacturing firms. These primarily produce handicrafts, Tibetan carpets, garments, and bricks for local sale and export.

Economic growth is inhibited by environmental degradation and poor management of utilities, which discourage foreign investment. For example, Kathmandu’s burgeoning information technology (IT) industry must contend with an unreliable power supply, while importing and exporting firms are at the mercy of disintegrating roads. Plans are in the works to clean up the city with the help of foreign aid.

Landmarks

Kathmandu is filled with beautiful, architecturally interesting religious structures and artwork, many of which are located in Durbar Square. The square is a landmark in its own right, and was designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.

Durbar Square is a cluster of three squares in the center of the old quarter that has been used by Nepalese royalty since the construction of the Old Royal Palace in the twelfth century. It houses many of Nepal’s most historic buildings, monuments and temples, including the Kasthamandap (the Pavilion of Wood) and Hanuman Dhoka (the Old Royal Palace).

Kasthamandap is a wooden pavilion after which Kathmandu may have been named. The city was constructed around the structure in the twelfth century. Initially a meeting place for traders, Kasthamandap later became a temple. Inside is a statue of Gorakhnath, the god to whom the temple is dedicated.

Hanuman Dhoka, the residence of the Malla kings, was built shortly after Kasthamandap. Seventeenth-century king Pratap Malla added extensively to it, but much of his work was destroyed in the 1934 earthquake. The palace is protected by a four-hundred-year-old statue of Hanuman, who guards its entrance.

Other sites of interest within Durbar Square are the golden shrine of the elephant-headed god Ashok Binayak, the Shiva temple Maju Deval, the Jagannath Temple (decorated with erotic carvings), and the largest temple in Kathmandu, the Taleju Temple.

History

The Kathmandu Valley was ruled by the Licchavi dynasty for roughly four hundred years before Licchavi king Gunakama Dev founded Kathmandu, originally called Kantipur, on the site of the valley’s main trade route in the early eighth century CE. Little is known about the period between the decline of the Licchavis in the ninth century and the rise of the ruling Malla dynasty in twelfth century.

The Mallas were Newars, or native Nepalese, who believed that they were reincarnations of the Hindu god Vishnu. Lovers of art and architecture, the Mallas used the wealth they accumulated from trade to build sumptuous temples and palaces throughout the sovereign state of Kathmandu and the rest of Kathmandu Valley.

Kathmandu Valley was briefly united in the late fourteenth century by King Jayasthiti Malla, who incorporated Kathmandu and the city of Patan into his kingdom of Bhaktapur. His descendant, King Jaksha Malla, split Bhaktapur into several kingdoms (including Kathmandu) in the fifteenth century, which he divided among his children.

Centuries of hostility between the kingdoms prevented them from joining forces to defend Kathmandu Valley against the invasion of Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha in 1768. Prithvi Narayan Shah wrested control from the Mallas and united all of Nepal into a single country, with Kathmandu as its capital. The Shah dynasty governed from Hanuman Dhoka in Kathmandu until 1846, when the slaughter of Kathmandu’s top military and administrative leaders in Durbar Square led to a shake-up of the chain of command.

The Kot Massacre, as it was called, was the impetus for military leader Jang Bahadur to proclaim himself prime minister of Nepal, a position more powerful than that of the Shah king and one he would pass on to his descendents. Kathmandu, declared a sanitation unit in 1919 and then a municipality office in 1931, grew both in size and population under the rule of the xenophobic Jang Bahadur. However, the city had become poorer. In 1934, an earthquake damaged a large portion of the city.

The Shahs, aided by political dissidents, revolted against Bahadur in 1950. A year later, Shah king Tribuvan reasserted his authority over the prime minister. He instituted a new "open borders" policy that benefited Kathmandu immensely. A highway built in 1956 that connected Kathmandu and India permitted trade with other countries. Visiting tourists created jobs and generated income, and foreign aid improved the standard of living in the city. An ensuing population boom, however, caused unregulated urban sprawl.

The Nepalese government, which became a constitutional monarchy in 1990, bestowed on Kathmandu the title of metropolitan city in 1995. During the decade-long civil war between Maoist insurgents and the government, the monarchy dissolved parliament and regained absolute power in 2002. After the conflict ended, a national Constituent Assembly formed and established Nepal as a federal democratic republic and ended monarchical rule.

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