The history of Nepal

l son
l son
Jul 25, 2017 · 3 min read

Nepāl is a landlocked central Himalayan country in South Asia. Nepal is divided into 7 states and 75 districts and 744 local units including 4 metropolises, 13 sub-metropolises, 246 municipal councils and 481 villages.It has a population of 26.4 million and is the 93rd largest country by area.Bordering China in the north and India in the south, east, and west, it is the largest sovereign Himalayan state. Nepal does not border Bangladesh, which is located within only 27 km (17 mi) of its southeastern tip. Neither does it border Bhutan due to the Indian state of Sikkim being located in between. 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 largest city. It is a multiethnic nation with Nepali as the official language.

1767

Gurkhas were ruling in Nepal. From 1767 onwards, they extended their power over the hills and valleys of Nepal. They were ruling on Feudal basis and soon became powerful. They marched into the Kumaun and Gangetic Plains and raided in the British Territories. Gurkhas lost Sikkim, the territories of Kumaon and Garhwal, and most of the lands of the Terai; the British East India Company promised to pay 200,000 rupees annually to compensate for the loss of income from the Terai region. Previously Darjeeling formed a part of dominions of the Raja of Sikkim, who had been engaged in an unsuccessful warfare against the Gorkhas. From 1780 the Gorkhas continually made inroads into Sikkim. Sikkim lost most of its land to Nepal and by the beginning of the 19th century, the Gorkhas had overrun Sikkim as far-eastward as the Teesta and had conquered and annexed the Terai.

Unification campaigns by Shah kings

King Prithvi Narayan Shah (1723–75) of the Shah dynasty decided to enlarge the kingdom that was confined to the small Gorkha region of Nepal and had an area of just 2,500 square kilometres (970 sq mi).

He defeated major principalities in wars and unified them under his rule starting from the 1740s ending with shifting of his Gorkha Kingdom’s capital from Gorkha region to Kathmandu in 1769. After his death in 1775, his eldest son Pratap Singh Shah continued defeating other smaller princes and absorbing their fiefdoms. Pratap Shah died at the age of twenty-five in 1777. Then Prithvi Narayan Shah’s second son, Bahadur Shah, ruled until 1794.

In the mid-18th century, Prithvi Narayan Shah, a Gorkha king, set out to put together what would become present-day Nepal. He embarked on his mission by securing the neutrality of the bordering mountain kingdoms. After several bloody battles and sieges, notably the Battle of Kirtipur, he managed to conquer the Kathmandu Valley in 1769. A detailed account of Prithvi Narayan Shah’s victory was written by Father Giuseppe, an eyewitness to the war.

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