Tell about interesting facts of Nepal ?

The age of the Malla kings was a golden one architecturally. The 15th century architect Arniko traveled to Lhasa and Beijing with the design for the pagoda, and forever changed the look of Asia’s religious temples. A 1255 earthquake killed a third of Nepal’s population during the reign of the Mallas as well.

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

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

Nepal’s ignominious defeat by the Chinese during an expansion attempt ended with the 1816 Sugauli Treaty, which established Nepal’s current boundaries. In humiliation Nepal cut itself off from all foreign contact for more than one hundred years. They reopened their borders in 1951.

After struggling from a constitutional monarchy with a multiparty democracy to Maoist extremists to Royal assassinations to the present day, Nepal presently is led by an elected president and parliament.

The approximately 70 million year old Himalaya mountain range in Asia separates the Tibetan Plateau from the Indian subcontinent and is spread across five countries: Nepal, Bhutan, India, China, and Pakistan. It is the youngest mountain range in the world. The word “Himalaya” means “abode of snow” in Sanskrit. They are the home of the god Shiva, according to Hindu mythology.

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.

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 (“Forehead of the Sky”) by the Sherpas.

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.

Twenty five years later, Reinhold Messner of Italy and Peter Habeler of Austria became the first to reach the summit without using supplemental oxygen, quite a feat in that thin atmosphere. Messner climbed Everest again in 1980.

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.

The Himalayan peak furthest east is Nameha Barwa and the one furthest west is Nanga Parbat.

Nepal is geologically alive. The Indo Australian plate under Nepal is still moving and will travel 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) into Asia in the next 10 million years.

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.

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.

Nepal’s Kaligandaki River is older than the Himalayas and is the major ecological dividing line between the western and eastern Himalayas.

In Nepal grow 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.

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.

Nepal is also home to over 650 different species of butterflies as well as the world’s largest moth (the Atlas moth) and some of its largest wild honeybees.

Nepal’s endangered species include the beautiful snow leopard, the red panda, and the one horned rhino.

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.

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.

The people of Nepal greet each other with their palms placed together. They bow their foreheads and say “Namaste” as is done in neighboring India. This literally means, “I salute the God in you.”

Nepal 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. They are incarnations of the goddess Taleju and live in temples, are worshipped by Buddhists and Hindus alike and driven in chariots during festivals. They retire upon achieving puberty

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 one in Nepal; it is their national animal as well.