Nepal
Situation and Topography
Nepal is nestling between the two big powers India and China. It stretches along the southern part of the Himalayas massif over a length of 800km and a width of 150 – 250km.
Eight of the world’s ten highest mountains are located in Nepal and 40% of the country’s total land area is situated more than 3,000m above sea level, which makes it on average the country with the highest altitude worldwide. The country consists of three topographic and climatic zones:
- The tropical plains is located in the South of the Ganges lowlands. Although this area only comes to 14% of the total land area, 47% of the population lives there. The fertile soil offers favourable conditions for agriculture.
- The low mountain range forms the transition of the lowlands to the Himalayas up to a hight of 4,000m above sea level. Embedded there are the valleys, which have been populated for thousands of years and among which the fertile Kathmandu Valley is the best-known. This region constitutes 30% of the total land area with a share of the population of 45%.
- The high mountain region of the Himalayas is regarded as a very inhospitable zone, which is why only 8% of the population lives here, and even this only in the valley’s depressions. During the summer months the pasture farming will be pursued up to a hight of as far as 5,000 m above sea level. The agriculture is being highly complicated during the time of the monsoon through heavy soil erosion due to violent rainfall. Tourism is the most important external source of income for the region.
Population and Economy
Nepal has 28,901,790 inhabitants (2007) and a rate of economic growth of 2.132% (2007). Out of those people only 15% live in the cities (in comparison to that the global level of urbanisation lies at 50%), however the growth rate is very high at 3.5%, which is due to the conditions in the country becoming more and more difficult. Agriculture holds an important role, as two quarters of the population earn their living out of it. Yet, this sector only constitutes 38% of the gross national product, in contrast to the tertiary sector, where only 6% of the people earn their money, but which accounts for 20% of the gross national product.
The agrarian poverty is a huge problem in Nepal, because environmental influences such as floodings, erosion and especially landslides severely affect the primary sector. In the year 2004, 30.9% of the Nepalese were living below the national poverty line.
The bigger part of the population, about 80.6%, are Hindus, followed by the Buddhists with 10.7%, the Muslims with 4.2% and 4.5% of other beliefs. Until 2006, Nepal was the only country where Hinduism was declared state religion.
