Nepal

Nepal, country of Asia, lying along the southern slopes of the Himalayan Mountain Range. It is a land locked located between India to the east, south, and west and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China to the north. Its territory extends roughly 500 miles (800 kilometres) from east to west and 90 to 150 miles from north to south. The capital is Kathmandu.

Nepal, long under the rule of hereditary prime ministers favouring a policy of isolation, remained closed to the outside world until a palace revolt in 1950 restored the crown’s authority in 1951; the country gained admission to the United Nation in 1955. In 1991 the kingdom established a multiparty parliamentry system. In 2008, however, after a decadelong period of violence and turbulent negotiation with a strong Maoist insurgency, the monarchy was dissolved, and Nepal was declared a democratic republic.

Wedged between two giants, India and China, Nepal seeks to keep a balance between the two countries in its foreign policy—and thus to remain independent. A factor that contributes immensely to the geopolitical importance of the country is the fact that a strong Nepal can deny China access to the rich Gangetic Plain; Nepal thus marks the southern boundary of the Chinese sphere north of the Himalayas in Asia.