Banke Districtबाँके जिल्ला

Banke is a western Tarai district on the Indian border, almost four-fifths of its 2,337 km² lying below 300 m; the Rapti river drains most of the district and the Babai its western edge, with the East–West Highway crossing the forest belt between them. It is one of the province's growth poles: the 2021 census counted 603,194 people, up from 491,313 in 2011 — 1.97% per year, among the fastest rates in Lumbini Province — at a density of 258 per km².

Demographically Banke is one of Nepal's most mixed districts: Muslims are the largest single community (18.3%), ahead of Chhetris (16.1%) and Tharus (13.7%), and Awadhi (37.2%) nearly rivals Nepali (41.8%) as the most-spoken first language. The headquarters Nepalgunj, a sub-metropolitan city, is the principal city of the western Tarai — a trade, transport and medical hub whose Jamunaha (Rupaidiha) crossing into Uttar Pradesh is one of the busiest points on the Indian border, and whose airport is the staging post for flights into the Karnali hill districts. The Bageshwari temple anchors the old town, while Kohalpur, the district's second municipality, has boomed at the junction where the Ratna Highway turns north toward Surkhet.

The district's northern forests form Banke National Park, established on 12 July 2010 as Nepal's tenth and newest national park: 550 km² of core habitat with a 343 km² buffer zone reaching into Banke, Dang and Salyan. Declared after recognition as a "Gift to the Earth", the park protects eight ecosystem types — Sal forest, mixed hardwoods and Bhabar foothills among them — and adjoins Bardiya National Park to the west, the two together forming a contiguous tiger conservation landscape of roughly 1,437 km² that holds Bengal tigers, striped hyenas and four-horned antelope.

Banke District is one of the four western Tarai districts collectively known as the 'Naya Muluk' (literally 'New Country'), the others being Bardiya, Kailali and Kanchanpur. Following Nepal's defeat in the Anglo-Nepalese War (1814-1816), the Treaty of Sugauli forced Nepal to cede large tracts of the western Tarai, including the lands of Banke, to the British East India Company. These plains then remained under British control for roughly four decades.

In 1860, the British returned the Naya Muluk territories to Nepal, rewarding Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana for the military assistance he had provided in helping suppress the Indian Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. The transfer was formalised by the Nepal-Britain Treaty signed on 1 November 1860. The reintegration of Banke and its neighbours significantly expanded Nepal's western Tarai holdings and re-established Nepalgunj as a frontier commercial town.

Nepalgunj, the district headquarters, grew through the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries into a key trading entrepot, gathering goods from the Indian plains and channelling them northward to supply the remote mountain districts of western Nepal and the Karnali region. Its position immediately beside the Indian border crossing at Rupaidiha, in Uttar Pradesh, made it a magnet for traders, including Muslim merchant communities who had migrated from the Gangetic plains, giving the town its enduringly multicultural character.

The modern district took its present shape during Nepal's mid-twentieth-century administrative reorganisation. As part of King Mahendra's 1960s restructuring that divided the kingdom into 75 districts, Banke's boundaries were formalised with Nepalgunj as headquarters. From the 1950s onward, large-scale malaria-eradication campaigns opened the once heavily forested Tarai to settlement, and government resettlement drives drew large numbers of hill migrants into the district, reshaping its demography. Today Banke lies within Lumbini Province and remains the administrative, commercial and transport hub of Nepal's mid-western Tarai.

Banke District occupies the southwestern Tarai of Nepal, a flat belt of the Indo-Gangetic Plain formed by alluvium washed down from the Himalaya. It is bordered by Bardiya District to the west, Salyan and Dang Deukhuri districts to the north and east, and the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to the south. The terrain is overwhelmingly low and level: roughly four-fifths of the district lies in the Lower Tropical zone below 300 metres, with the remainder rising into the Upper Tropical belt and a small sliver of subtropical land where the Siwalik (Churia) hills fringe the north.

The district's hydrology is dominated by the Rapti (West Rapti) River, which drains most of Banke, while the Babai River drains its western edge; both rivers ultimately flow south into Uttar Pradesh and join the Karnali (Ghaghara) system. Their seasonal floods deposit fertile silt across the plains but also cause erosion along the vulnerable Churia slopes and inundation during the monsoon. Riverine forests, wetlands and grasslands line these watercourses.

Banke has a tropical, dry-winter humid subtropical climate, with warm winters and hot, humid summers and a strong monsoon. The western Tarai receives somewhat less rainfall than the east, most of it concentrated in the June-September monsoon. Pre-monsoon summers can be exceptionally hot, and Nepalgunj is regularly among the hottest places in the country.

Agriculture underpins the economy of Banke. The district's fertile alluvial soils support cereals such as rice, wheat and maize, along with sugarcane, potatoes, legumes, vegetables, spices and fruit, and most households also keep livestock. The great majority of farming households cultivate land, with paddy grown widely during the monsoon, though a large share of grain output is retained for home consumption, limiting commercialisation. Vegetables, spices and fruit are more strongly market-oriented.

Trade is the other pillar of the district economy. Nepalgunj sits beside the Rupaidiha border crossing into Uttar Pradesh and functions as one of Nepal's principal gateways for India-Nepal commerce, as well as the wholesale supply centre for the mid-western hills and the Karnali region. Cross-border trade in grain, manufactured goods and consumer items, together with remittances from migrant workers abroad, makes Banke one of the more economically dynamic districts of the Tarai.

Nepalgunj is also a regional service centre. It hosts major health and education institutions, including the Nepalgunj Medical College and its teaching hospitals at Kohalpur and in the city, and Bheri Hospital. Ranjha (Nepalgunj) Airport, just north of the city, is a key aviation hub for western Nepal, serving as a staging point for flights into the remote Karnali districts and for pilgrims travelling onward toward Mount Kailash via Humla.

Banke is one of Nepal's most ethnically and religiously diverse districts. Its population blends an indigenous Tharu community of the Tarai with hill-origin Khas groups such as Chhetri and Brahmin, Madhesi communities of the plains, and a large Muslim population concentrated especially in and around Nepalgunj. According to the 2021 census the largest groups include Muslims, Chhetri and Tharu, with Hinduism the predominant religion followed by a substantial Muslim minority and smaller Christian and Buddhist communities.

This diversity is reflected in language. Nepali and Awadhi are among the most widely spoken tongues, followed by Tharu languages, with Urdu and Hindi also present, a linguistic mix that mirrors the district's location at the meeting point of the Nepali-speaking hills and the Awadhi-speaking Gangetic plains. The Tharu, the district's indigenous people, maintain distinctive dress, dance and customs.

Nepalgunj is well known for its tradition of interfaith coexistence, where Hindu, Muslim and other communities have long lived and celebrated festivals together. Dashain, Tihar (Deepawali) and Holi are observed alongside Eid, and the city's Dashain celebrations are known for the burning of a large effigy of the demon king Ravana on Vijayadashami. The Bageshwori Temple in the heart of the city is the cultural and religious focal point of the district, drawing pilgrims from both Nepal and neighbouring India, particularly during Dashain.