LE NEPAL

NEPALESE AGENCY FOR TREKKINGS, EXPEDITIONS AND CULTURAL CIRCUITS

MO NEPALI SIKTSHOU

J'apprends le Népali

Economy
The economy of Nepal east one of poorest and of the least developed world, 42% of its population lives with the lower part of the poverty line.
Agriculture is the principal sector of the economy providing more than 80% of employment and accounting for 40% of the GNP. The industrial activity consists mainly in the treatment of the agricultural produce like the jute,
tobacco, the cane with sugar and cereals.
The international community takes part to a total value of 60% of the budget of development of the country and to a total value of 28% of the total budgetary expenditure. Nepal has a real potential of development of the hydroelectric exploitation and tourism. But, the developmental perspectives of other branches of industry are limited, because of its technological delay, its geographical constraints and its political instability.

Nepal is located on the southern slopes of the Himalayas and presents itself as a narrow long strip of land 845 km of is in west and broad from 145 to 241 km of north in the south. It is a small state of 147.181 km ² wedged between two giants and superpuissances, China in north and India in the south. Its altitude varies
of 60 meters in Téraï with 8.848 meters with the Mount Everest. This enormous uneven involves a very great diversity of grounds and climates and consequently of the flora and fauna.

Geography
Nepal is divided geographically into several parallel bands directed of the North-West towards south-east forming five great natural areas:
Téraï, more in the south, of an average altitude of 100 meters, is a zone of plains on the fertile alluvial ground, belonging to the large plain of Gange in India.
Siwalik, located at the top of Téraï culminating with 2.000 meters, penetrated by the virgin forest, it announces the first tops.

Mahabharata Lekh, is a true assembly line, whose certain tops reach 3.000 meters, with broad valleys and plates sprinkled by the rivers come from the Himalayas.
The Nepalese plate, constitutes the fourth and more important level, 100 km broad approximately, whose average altitude is of 4.570 meters.
The Himalayan chain, eight of the ten plus high summits of the world exceeding 8.000 meters.

NEPAL

Nepal is dominated by eight of the more high summits of the world, surrounded of more than 100 tops of 7.000 meters constituting a giant wall.
The Mount Everest, 8.848 meters, is the culminating point of planet, overcome in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa.
It is called Sagarmatha by the Nepaleses

Mont Everest	8.848m	1er top of the world
Kanchenjunga	8.586m	3eme
Lhotse	8.516m	4eme
Makalu I	8.462m	5eme
Cho-Oyu	8.201m	6eme
Dhaulagiri I	8.172m	7eme
Manaslu	8.156m	8eme
Annapurna I	8.091m	10eme
The Himalayas term is the translation of two words Sanskrits, meaning “the residence of snows”.

Climate
Altitude constitutes an essential climatic factor. In the high Himalayas, the temperatures remain cold all the year, but the eternal snow does not go down in lower part 5.000 meters. All the climates are present at Nepal, polar in high mountain, moderate on the intermediate plates, of which the valley of Katmandu, and tropical in the jungle of Téraï.

Nepal is subjected to the mode of the monsoon, which goes up plain
of Gange to sprinkle the buttresses of the Himalayas for three months,
from June to August. Precipitations depend on altitude and the exposure of the reliefs to the rains of monsoon.
Teraï receives 2.000 mm of rain compared with 1.400 in Katmandu and 800 mm in the west of the country. Best seasons to go to Nepal
are thus before and after monsoon in April-May and October-November.
It is often forgotten, but Nepal east with the latitude of Morocco and the Canaries and the climate remain moderate on most of the territory..

Population
The population of Nepal is considered in 2004 at 27 million inhabitants, consisted of two principal groups: Indo-Nepaleses, of Indian origin of religion hindouist and Tibéto-Nepaleses, origin tibéto-Burmese
of Buddhist religion. The majority of the Nepaleses lives in Téraï (47%)
and on the Nepalese plate (45%), only 8% of the population are dispersed in the mountainous sector highest.
Nepal forms a multiethnic and multicultural company. The census of 2001 entered up to 103 different ethnicities.

source: demographic statistics UNO (2001/2002 and 2004))

Demographic data

population growth

2,17%

Middle Age

20,3 years (40% of the population have less than 15 years)

life expectancy

60,2 years

infant mortality

65,3% (one of highest of Asia)

1 woman out of 15 dies of the continuations of a pregnancy

rate of elimination of illiteracy

48,6% (of which men 63% and women 37%)

schooling

40% of the children are provided education

access to drinking water

88% of population

Pattern of the settlement by religion
Hindouisme	80,6%
Bouddhisme	10,7%
Islam	4,2%
Kirant (religion des ethnies Raï, Limbu et Sunuwar)	3,6%
autres	0,9%

unumployment

42%

Hindouisme and Buddhism are the two religions practised and omnipresent in the streets and the campaigns of Nepal, where there exists a god for all things. The populations Indo-Nepaleses are generally Hindu, whereas the populations Tibéto-Nepalese are Buddhist.
The History does not mention any conflict between these two religions whose rites are similar and whose certain temples are divided between the two confessions.
The hindouists, accounting for 80% of the population, also adopted many traditions local animists. During their establishment in Nepal, the Indian populations founded their institutions, in particular their system of castes.

Ganesh, wire of Shiva, are
the Master of all the malfaisants spirits. It east is a god and very popular and very venerated in Nepal.

Bouddha,
mean literally in Sanskrit “which woke up”. The title of Buddha nominates a person having carried out “the pure and perfect awakening”, having reached “the nirvana”. There exists several Buddha, most known is the founder of Buddhism” Siddhârta Gautama ", born in Nepal with Lumbini into 624 before JC and died at the 80 years age into 544 before JC with Kusinagar in India (Uttar Pradesh).

Climatology : Median values
Katmandou	janv.	fév.	mars	april	may	june	july	august	sept.	oct.	nov.	dec.
Pluviometry (mm)	15	41	23	58	122	246	373	345	155	38	8	13
Temperature maxi (°C)	18	19	25	28	30	29	29	28	28	27	23	19
Temperature mini (°C)	2	4	7	12	16	19	20	20	19	13	7	3

Flora and fauna
Altitude also influences the flora in its diversity. Although the Nepalese territory is not very wide, all the climatic modes are represented there, giving rise to an exuberant and exceptionally diversified flora. One does not count less than 6.500 species of trees, shrubs and wild flowers in Nepal. The tropical forests of altitude push up to 2.000 meters, then yield the place to the forests of Rhododendrons and leafy trees up to 3.000 meters and with the forests of pines, oaks and fir trees up to 3.900 meters. Beyond that, only one close-cropped vegetation remains.
Nepal shelters also a very large variety of mammals, birds and reptiles. Tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinoceroses live in the wetlands of Téraï, goat's milk cheeses, sheep wild, wolf, bear and yaks populates the mountainous slopes. Eight national parks and four natural reserves covering more than 8% of the entire surface of the country, were created to protect these threatened species.

Katmandu
capital of Nepal was founded in Xème century by king Gunakamadeva. The city is located at 1350 meters of altitude, with the confluence of two rivers, Bagmati and Bishnumati, in the middle of a vast valley surrounded of the first Himalayan mountains, including/understanding 3 royal cities: Katmandu, Patan and Baktapur.

The valley of Katmandu counts 2700 temples and monuments: polychrome carved wood, red brick, copper roofs, pagodas and stupas give
the tone with the whole landscape. Seven sites are registered with the world heritage UNESCO.
As much of poor towns of country, Katmandu is divided today between tradition and modernity. In spite of a fast and anarchistic urban growth, Katmandu remains an attaching place
where the history left many testimonys.

In 2007, the population of town of Katmandu is estimated at 856.000 individuals. The last official census of 2001 entered 671.846 inhabitants

Annapurna massif seen of the lake Phewa Tal in Pokhara

Lo Manthang, strengthened capital of the old kingdom of Mustang

Devanagari,
mean in Sanskrit “divine writing”. Alphabet spelling-book used to write, inter alia, Sanskrit, the Hindi, the Nepalese, the marathe and several other languagesIndians. It descends from the writing “brâhmî” nd is at the origin of the writing Tibetan.

Language
The official language of the country is the népali, pertaining to the European indo family and of Indo-Iranian group. But Nepal counts more than one hundred of language: 93 languages sino-Tibetans, against 26 Iranian languages indo. However, the 26 Indo-Iranian languages gather
86% of the speakers compared with 13% for the languages sino-Tibetans.
Two languages of the austro-Asian family and a language of the dravidienne family, gather 1% speakers.