Nepal is formally the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, yet also consists of parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, surrounding Tibet of China to the north, and also India in the south, eastern, and west, while it is directly divided from Bangladesh by the Siliguri Corridor, as well as from Bhutan by the Indian state of Sikkim.

Nepal has a diverse location, including abundant plains, subalpine forested hillsides, as well as 8 of the globe’s ten highest mountains, consisting of Mount Everest, the acme on Earth. Nepal is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious as well as multi-cultural state, with Nepali as the official language. Kathmandu is the nation’s capital and also the largest city.

The name “Nepal” is first tape-recorded in messages from the Vedic period of the Indian subcontinent, the age in ancient Nepal when Hinduism was founded, the predominant religious beliefs of the nation. In the middle of the first millennium BC, Gautama Buddha, the owner of Buddhism, was birthed in Lumbini in southern Nepal. Parts of north Nepal were intertwined with the culture of Tibet.

The centrally located Kathmandu Valley is intertwined with the society of Indo-Aryans, as well as was the seat of the thriving Newar confederacy called Nepal Mandala. The Himalayan branch of the old Silk Road was dominated by the valley’s investors. The multicultural area created distinctive traditional art and also design. By the 18th century, the Gorkha Kingdom achieved the unification of Nepal. The Shah dynasty established the Kingdom of Nepal as well as later formed a partnership with the British Empire, under its Rana dynasty of premiers.

The nation was never colonised yet functioned as a buffer state between Imperial China as well as British India. Legislative freedom was presented in 1951 but was twice suspended by Nepalese queens, in 1960 and also 2005. The Nepalese Civil War in the 1990s as well as early 2000s caused the establishment of a secular republic in 2008, finishing the globe’s last Hindu monarchy.

The Constitution of Nepal, taken on in 2015, verifies the nation as a nonreligious federal parliamentary republic separated right into 7 provinces. Nepal was confessed to the United Nations in 1955, as well as friendship treaties were authorized with India in 1950 as well as China in 1960. Nepal holds the permanent secretariat southern Eastern Organization for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), of which it is a starting participant.

Nepal is also a participant of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Bay of Bengal Initiative. The Nepalese Armed Forces are the fifth-largest in South Asia; as well as are remarkable for their Gurkha history, especially throughout the world wars, and also has been a considerable factor to United Nations peacekeeping procedures.