'Chitwan district', a part of
Narayani zone, is one of the seventy-five
districts of
Nepal, a
landlocked country of
South Asia. The district, with
Bharatpur(seventh largest city of Nepal) as its district headquarters, Bharatpur is a Meager commercial and service center of central south Nepal, it is the merger destination for higher education health and transportation of the region. covers an area of 2,218 km² and has a population (
2001) of 472,048.
Narayangarh, on the bank of Narayani River, is the main town with numerous shopping zones where people from all over the district and even from neighboring district come to shop.
Now there are about 40 Village Development Committees (each of which has nine wards or villages) and one sub-Metropolitan city -
Bharatpur and a municipality
Ratnanagar each of which has more than nine wards or urban areas.
At the foot of the
Himalayas, Chitwan is one of the few remaining undisturbed vestiges of the
Terai region, which formerly extended over the foothills of Nepal.
Origin
Currently there are three stories about the origin of the name
Chitwan:
★ The dense jungle there (before men started settlements there) was teeming with
Cheetahs. And, the word for 'jungle' in
Nepali is ''van''. So, the people around started to call that locality as ''Cheetah-van'', which was later modified as Chitwan.
★ The dense jungle in the past was teeming with
deer, and so they started to call it ''Chitri-van'' which gave way to the present word for the district.
★ Long ago, the region was reigned by a kings descended from
Chitra Vamsa. (''Vamsa'' is a
Sanskrit word for
dynasty or
lineage).
Industry
Chitwan is very famous in Nepal because of its dominant production of
mustard from which
mustard oil is produced. This popularity of the mustard plantation in Chitwan is attributed to the predominant soil type of the place. The soil in chitwan is mostly of the type
silt. The silty nature of the soil is in turn attributed to the flooding over the ages in the past from the rivers like
Gandaki. Chitwan is also profusely spotted with lands with soil type
clay which are very good for the use as
(rice) fields. Other popular
cash-crops in the region are
maize and
wheat etc. The soil there is also very good for growing various types of vegetables such as
cabbage,
cauliflower,
radish,
potato,
broccoli,
cucumbers,
pumpkins,
carrot etc.
Chitwan product 70% of the country poultry industry, and it is also famous for floriculture, Mushrooms cultivation, Bea Forms and Honey production etc.
At present Chitwan's largest business part
Narayangarh is less accessible due to the main bus terminal of the city was moved a few kilometers away from the town to the corner of the other part of Bharatpur city, due to previous king's son's anger with the politics of the citizens of the city.This bus terminal is however no longer in use following successful people's movement in 2006. It is believed that Nepali leftist revolutionary leader
Prachanda spent his childhood and youth in Chitwan. The present
Deputy Prime Minister of
Nepal,
Amik Sherchan, also hails from Chitwan.
Geography
It has a particularly rich
flora and
fauna.
One of the last populations of single-horned
Indian Rhinoceros ''(Rhinoceros unicornis)'', Panthers /
Leopards,
crocodiles,
pythons, and several kinds of
deer live in the
Chitwan National Park, which is also one of the last refuges of the
Royal Bengal tiger. Chitwan National Park is unable to protect to the rhinos from poacher.
See also
★
Zones of Nepal
★
Royal Chitwan National Park
Reference
★