This is the Nepali translation of the Country Profile on Universal Access to Sexual and Reproductive Health: Nepal. For the English version, click here.
Nepal is a land-locked country located at the foothills of the Himalayas. The country is bordered by India to the east, south, west, and China to the north. Nepal is rectangular in shape and stretches 885 kilometers in length (east to west) and 193 kilometers in width (north to south). The total land area of the country is 147,181 square kilometers. Nepal is divided into three distinct ecological regions: Mountainous region, Hilly region and the Terai (or plains) region and five development regions according to its accessibility/remoteness: Far Western Development Region, Mid-Western Development Region, Western Development Region, Central Development Region, and Eastern Development Region.
According to the 2011 census, population of Nepal stood at 26.6 million; with an increase of 3.5 million since the last census of 2001. Upon observing, we find that the population has more than doubled in the last 40 years. The population grew at a rapid rate between 1971 and 1981 from 2.1 percent to 2.6 percent but it receded to just over 2 percent in 1991 and 1.4 percent in 2011. The population density of Nepal is estimated at 181 per square kilometers. The total male population according to the 2011 census was 12.8 million whereas the total female population was 13.6 million. In 2011, approximately 20.7 percentage of the total population was in between 0-9 year age, and 23.5 percentage of the total population belonged to 10-19 age group. Young adults aged 20–34 years comprised 24.1 percentage and adults aged 35–59 years comprised 22.4 percentage of the total population respectively. Persons of 60 years of age and above comprised 7.3 percentage of the population.