FACTS ABOUT NEPAL
POPULATION
Nepal's population stands at around 23.4 million (2001 estimate). The population growth rate is a high 2.43%. The largest city is Kathmandu, the capita, with 500,000 people, although the population of the Kathmandu Valley is around one million.
In the mountains the rate of population increase is lower than in the Terai, but is because of many people are migrating in search of land and work. Despite or because of extremely high rates of infant mortality and the life expectancy of only 57 years, the overall annual rate of population increase is high, putting enormous pressures on Nepal's fragile ecology.
PEOPLE
Like the geography, the population of Nepal is extremely diverse and highly complex. Simplistically, Nepal is the meeting point of the Indo-Aryan people of India and the Tibeto-Burmese of the Himalaya, but this gives little hint of the dynamic ethnic mosaic that has developed and continues to change to this day.
In a south-north direction, as you move from the plains to the mountains, the ethnic map can be roughly divided into layers: the Himalaya, the midlands or Pahar zone, and acteristic ethnic groups whose agriculture and lifestyles are adapted to suit the physical constraints of their environment. These zones can be further subdivided from east to west, with different groups in the east, central and western regions of each zone.
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